One weekend; one game; two incredibly talented small forwards in this year’s All-Star Game starters lineup – how else can one look at the imminent matchup between Chicago Bulls’ bucket getter Jimmy Butler and Golden State Warriors sniper Kevin Durant on 19 February.
They are both exciting players to watch and will look to bring their distinctive brand of play to the Smoothie King Center in downtown New Orleans.
Durant, who has a slight edge on his opponent, will be making his eighth appearance in the showcase weekend’s main event and holds the highest scoring average in All-Star Game history with 25.6 points per game.
He is no stranger to the bright lights of the NBA’s mid-season spectacle and has come up against many of the league’s top players at previous events and managed to shine in the process.
However, his main counterpart in this this year’s event is a little different. Butler had been in the NBA since 2011 and is emerging as a leader at the Bulls. He will be coming off a period where his team is going through a very turbulent time and will be looking to let off some steam in a showcase game. Besides, the All-Star Game is mostly for bragging rights than anything.
Butler had six points, one rebound and one assist in the 2015 and missed last year’s All-Star Game due to injury and was replaced by Pau Gasol. He was picked as a reserve in previous events, but this time he will be a starter and this changes things and will see him trying to prove why he should be a starter again in future events.
If regular season stats are what one was to go by, Durant wins this matchup hands down, he has a better scoring average with 26.1 points per game compared to Butler’s 24.6. Butler averages 6.5 rebounds compared to Duran’s 8.4, but they are equal in assist averages with 4.8 per game.
However, one must still bear in mind that the All-Star matchup is a game of show-and-tell and is devoid of all the pressures of a regular season game and brings out a different type of player in most. Last year even saw Stephen Curry dunking a couple of times, something he rarely does in regular season or playoff games.
All matchups considered, this promises to be very exciting and worth looking out for because on one had Durant has an advantage in that he is the taller of the two with better statistics, but Butler knows this and will clearly be out to prove himself the better small forward while working out some regular season frustrations in the process.
Will Butler bring the buckets, or will KD do what he does best and drop threes from deep? All remains to be seen on the fateful day.
The All-Star Weekend events will be broadcast live from Saturday 18 February to Monday 20 February, with the main game on the last day at 3am CAT exclusively on Kwese Sports in Africa.
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