Jimmy Butler’s best quality for the Timberwolves? His ability to blend in

Jimmy Butler is a star who has the rarest quality of them all: knowing when to step back.

This isn’t about the on-court separation move — though he’ll bust a jumper in your face after doing that, too — but a more metaphorical step back, one that is has shown up clearly through the Minnesota Timberwolves’ first 10 games.

Butler is a star, but he isn’t acting like one. The forward is averaging 15.1 points per game, nearly nine points worse than his scoring average last season with the Chicago Bulls. He’s dialed in on defense and doing the dirty work, while embracing a leadership role that the young Wolves badly need.

Minnesota is 7-3, tied for the second-best record in the Western Conference, although some regression is inevitably coming their way. They’ve won four games by three points or fewer, and their net rating is actually minus-0.5, thanks to a defense that comes in at No. 25 in defensive rating. (They’re allowing more than 108 points per 100 possessions.)

Butler’s presence is crucial for the Timberwolves to improve. He’s a hard-nosed disciple of Tom Thibodeau’s brutal Chicago defenses, and he’s a 28-year-old who can push Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns in the right direction. When Butler plays, the defense is better — a 106.7 defensive rating, third-best on the team, and the best among players with more than 200 minutes. (Butler is one of six Wolves passing that plateau.)

Butler’s only a year removed from having the 14th-highest points per game average in the league. It’s partly because he’s due for a hot streak — his True Shooting Percentage is down five percent, and it will likely recover. But his usage rating is also only fifth on the team, well below Wiggins and Towns and also behind Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford.

Instead, Butler has the team’s second-best rebounding percentage, and the Timberwolves score more fast-break points and points off turnovers when he’s in the game than any other individual on the roster. Those stats are still slightly skewed by our small sample size, especially since Butler missed two games with illness. But it’s proof that Butler’s presence alone makes his teammates better even when he’s not trying to score.

In every Big Three, we’ve seen players give and take to make the relationship between them work. Butler is the veteran, and he’s also a newcomer to Minnesota. He’s giving as much as he can right now, and it has helped the Timberwolves leap out to this great start.

It seems like a safe assumption that Jamal Crawford and Jeff Teague, at least, won’t have higher usage rates than Butler in a few months. Here’s how Josh Clement at Canis Hoopus lays it out:

So far, Butler’s usage rate has been the one to plummet. His current usage rate is 19.8 percent. He certainly has taken on a facilitation role with this group and has been picking and choosing his spots to score. Butler is also the most versatile of the star trio and he likely was cognizant that he is more able to adjust to the new system compared to Wiggins and Towns. As the season goes on, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his usage go up at the expense of Towns and Wiggins.

Clement is right, and I would expect to see Butler’s role on the team increase as Minnesota figures it out. In fact, the Timberwolves might need him to do that on Wednesday night against the Warriors.

But right now, he’s working behind the scenes, letting his new teammate shine. Why? Because he can afford to do that, and sometimes, stars just know that’s what they need to do.