Ex-UW star Butch adjusts to new role
Brian Butch thinks he can still play. Of course he does. You can take the man out of the gym, but you can’t take the gym out of the man.
Even with a pair of bad knees and on the tail end of a nomadic 10-year professional basketball career that has taken him all over the world and to within a whisker of playing in the NBA, Butch figures there’s got to be a team out there that could use a big with three-point range.
“I haven’t closed the door,” he says. “You never close the door because you always think there’s a chance.”
The NBA? No, that door is bolted shut. There is no market stateside for 32-year-old free agents – Butch will turn 33 on Dec. 22 – even if they stand 6-foot-11 and can shoot it. Perhaps Europe, if it’s the right situation, the right city.
In the meantime, he is making the transition to coaching as an associate with the Wisconsin Herd, the Bucks’ G League affiliate in Oshkosh.
Butch has come full circle in the game, and in life. He starred just down the road at Appleton West High School, where he was a 2003 McDonald’s All-American before moving on to the University of Wisconsin. He and his wife, Megan, still live in Neenah.
Coaching is the natural next step for Butch, a self-proclaimed basketball junkie. The game is a big part of his identity. He’s enjoying it so far, even if he still has the urge to throw on a uniform on game days.
“It’s still there, because you do want to play,” he says. “The toughest
thing is, I have no result. As soon as that ball tips, I can’t go out there and make a play. I can tell guys what to do, I can show guys what to do, but you can’t go physically do it yourself. That’s probably the toughest part.”
Even if he never again suits up, Butch can take comfort in the fact that he didn’t cheat himself. Limited athletically, he worked tirelessly on refining his skills and turned himself into a good college player. But after averaging 12.4 points and 6.6 points as a senior at Wisconsin, he went undrafted in the 2008 NBA Draft.
What followed was a journey through the good, bad and ugly of international basketball, punctuated by stints with the Bakersfield Jam and Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the NBA Development League (now the G League).
He was the league’s All-Star Game MVP one year, earned first-team allleague honors another and signed contracts with Denver, New Orleans and Utah but never appeared in a regular-season NBA game. Two blown knees didn't help.
“I came so close a lot of times,” he says. “That’s life. I have no regrets because none of it was in my control. I gave the game everything I had and everything I could.”
As an associate coach with the Herd, he’s working with players who are what he was 10 years ago. The vast majority will never see an NBA court. The dream dies hard, though, and there is always international ball. It’s there that Butch can help them, because he’s truly seen it all.
His first experience was with the Jiangsu Dragons in China, a forgettable month in which he played in a handful of games, had an odd translator who went by the nickname “Eagle” and returned to his hotel room after a game to find airplane tickets on his bed.
“That’s how they told me I was leaving,” he says.
He played three months with Ilysiakos B.C. in the Greek League, where there was a little problem with payroll. Like, Butch wasn’t getting paid. The team parted ways with him, but not before Butch bought a ticket to a game, entered the locker room at halftime and demanded his salary.
In the Philippines, he went out to dinner with his new teammates and, wanting to fit in, forced himself to eat balut – duck embryo boiled and eaten from the shell. Filippinos consider it a delicacy. Butch considered it gaggy. He had a 40-point, 31-rebound game and still wound up getting released.
“They just said, ‘We want to make a change,’ ” Butch says. “It’s part of that business. It’s very frustrating.”
Early on, he didn’t enjoy playing overseas, so far from home, a million miles from the NBA. But he learned to embrace different cultures and came to appreciate the fact that he was traveling the world and getting paid – sometimes – to play a game.
His last three years, he played in Dubai and with two teams in Japan, the Toshiba Brave Thunders in Tokyo and the Rising Zephyrs in Fukuoka.
“I loved the experience in Japan, loved the culture,” he says. “The people are so kind and gentle. They like basketball. So it was a great experience.”
The door is cracked open. Butch still has the itch. But if his playing career is over, coaching is a good alternative for a guy who can’t get the game out of his system.
“I’m going to give coaching everything I have,” he says, “and see where it takes me.”
Odds are good he’s already been there.