The case for Lamont Butler to be the starting point guard for Kentucky basketball

Mark Pope has a problem. It may be a good problem, but it's still a problem. He has to figure out how to take 10 starters and turn them into five. He has so much talent on this reloaded Kentucky program that you could make a case for any of 10 players to be the starters. Which is exactly what I am attempting to do. Let's make the case for Lamont Butler to be the starting point guard for the Wildcats. You can read the case for Kerr Kriisa here.

Butler has emerged as a favorite to win the starting point guard position as more and more analysts predict him to be the starter. He has really only known what it looks like to be a starter. He wasn't the starting point guard when he was a freshman at SDSU.

Butler comes into the Kentucky program as a graduate transfer from San Diego State University, where he played his previous four seasons. As a freshman, he only started in two games, but he played in all of them and averaged 4.3 points and 1.7 rebounds a game. He spent that year getting adjusted to the college game, and when his sophomore year came around, he soared into the national spotlight, becoming one of the best point guards in the Mountain West Conference.

As a sophomore, Butler was elected to the Mountain West All-Defensive Team because, as a point guard, he was able to make 46 steals and 57 rebounds (46 of which were defensive). The Kentucky Wildcats Athletic page says this about his sophomore year, "A starter in 25 of the 27 games in which he appeared. Averaged 7.3 points and 2.1 rebounds in 25.4 minutes per game. Added 57 assists, 46 steals and four blocks. Shot 39.1% from the field, 32.9% from beyond the arc, and 77.3% from the line." This is a very impressive sophomore campaign.

Like good basketball players, Butler only gets better, and he took another step forward in his junior year, where he won multiple awards. He was elected to the NCAA All-Tournament Team, NCAA Tournament All-South Regional Team, Mountain West All-Defensive Team, Third-Team All-Mountain West, and the media elected him as the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year and Honorable Mention All-Mountain West.

In his junior year, he averaged 8.8 points and 2.7 rebounds per game (a total of 105 on the season). He also recorded an impressive 126 assists and continued his dominance in steals with 57. His junior year is also when he took a dramatic step forward in his three-point shooting, making 40 from beyond the arch.

In Butler's final year as an Aztec, we saw much of the same from his junior year. He started in every game and continued to dominate in points, steals, and rebounds. He scored the exact same amount of points, 345, as he did his junior year. He added 95 rebounds and 56 steals. The biggest improvement between his junior and senior years was in turnovers. He went from 79 turnovers to 55.

Certainly, you can argue that this is all very impressive, but what I think makes the biggest case for Butler to be the starting point guard for Mark Pope's Wildcats is that his team has never missed an NCAA tournament. Every year Butler has played college basketball, his team has gone to the NCAA tournament. In his junior year, he led his team to the National Championship game but lost to UCONN 76-59. It was UCONN again that knocked them out of the tournament in his senior year in the Sweet 16. Pope wants to win championships at Kentucky, and the post-season experience that Butler brings to the Wildcats is unmatched by any other player.

Kriisa and Butler present two different visions of the point guard position and will effectively operate as a change-of-pace running back in the NFL. They could easily even be on the floor at the same time as they run the point uniquely. Kriisa is a distribution-first point guard with lots of assists and open threes. Butler is a slash-and-dash point guard with an aggressive and effective defensive style. He likes to take the ball to the hoop, and his assists often come from his ability to make noise in the lane.

Butler clearly has the championship caliber pedigree to be the next great starting Kentucky Wildcat point guard. This is the strongest case I can make for Butler as the primary starting point guard for Mark Pope.