Breakout star Butler was made for Miami
People laughed at the story about Jimmy Butler getting a visit from hotel security because he was dribbling a basketball too loudly in his room.
They laughed at the idea of Butler peddling US$20 cups of his branded coffee to his Miami Heat teammates.
They laughed at how unruly his moustache got as he steadfastly refused to see a barber.
So much about Butler’s stay inside the NBA bubble at Walt Disney World in Florida was a source of humour.
For the first time in Butler’s career, people were readily laughing along with him, because he was more effective and consistent than ever with the serious stuff.
With the longest season in league history finally complete on Sunday, it is no joke to assert that no player in the bubble enhanced his reputation as much as Butler did.
Miami lost the NBA Finals to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in six games, but Butler — playing for much of the series without the injured Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic alongside him — won the bubble as much as any individual could.
When the season began more than 12 months ago, Butler was widely regarded as a perennial All-Star whose headstrong, confrontational ways made him a complicated fit in most NBA locker rooms.
A year later, after he led the Heat to the NBA Finals as No.5 seeds and outduelled James twice in the championship series, Butler has the look (and commands the respect) of one of the league’s top 10 players.
Will it last? Will the success and adulation change him? Or did we actually have it wrong about him all along? These are the sorts of questions Butler, 31, inspires now after a post-30, Steve Nash-ian breakthrough to elite status in his ninth season.
“Believe me when I tell you that I do not care what people say about me,” Butler said. “I truly don’t care.”
That was his message to me after Miami’s first-round sweep of the Indiana Pacers, when Butler’s forceful play turned what was supposed to be a heated showdown against the Pacers’ TJ Warren into a non-event.
My best read is that most people outside (and even inside) NBA circles refuse to believe Butler when he says that, but he had me convinced after an afternoon visit in late August.
The esteem Butler holds among his peers — which was high long before the bubble — is such that he needn’t worry much about how basketball pundits rate him.
I saw it firsthand over the course of an hour-long sit-down with Butler in my favourite bubble hallway adjacent to three of the seven practice courts that sprouted on the NBA campus.
The hallway with the garish orange carpet at the Coronado Springs convention centre was the only place in the bubble where reporters could expect to have unsupervised chance interactions with players, coaches and other team personnel.
It was also a main thoroughfare to the meal rooms for the league’s top teams, who were all staying at Disney’s Gran Destino tower.
While I talked with Butler, Milwaukee’s Wes Matthews stopped by to reminisce with him about their days at Marquette.
Pat Connaughton, Matthews’ Bucks teammate, tried in vain to arrange a discount from Butler’s Big Face Coffee venture, even though Milwaukee and Miami would soon begin a secondround play-off series. Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens made sure that Butler heard him say hello.
After a number of Lakers players enthusiastically greeted Butler, Rajon Rondo lingered to rehash how dangerous they were together in Chicago in the 2017 play-offs.
Rondo, Butler and the No.8 Bulls took a surprising 2-0 series lead over the topseeded Celtics that year by winning the first two games in Boston — and let’s just say they both strongly believe that the Celtics would have never rallied if Rondo hadn’t fractured his right thumb in Game Two.
Lakers coach Frank Vogel also soon appeared to share how much he enjoyed Butler’s Michelob Ultra commercial, which features Butler singing the Hall & Oates song You Make My Dreams Come True. Then, like Connaughton, Vogel tried to cut his own coffee deal.
Milwaukee’s Robin Lopez, another former Bulls teammate of Butler’s, was the last in a procession of well-wishers.
As he walked away towards the Gran Destino, Lopez turned back, pointed to Butler and announced, “This man is a treasure.”
More NBA players than not feel that way about Butler.
You see it in the way Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid pines for Butler through cryptic social media posts, after the 76ers prioritised signing Al Horford in 2019 free agency and helped Butler get to Miami in a sign-and-trade deal when the Heat had no salary-cap space.
You saw it again on Monday when Pau Gasol posted a warm tribute to Butler on social media.
Gasol most closely associates himself with the Lakers after winning two championships alongside Kobe Bryant, but he also played with Butler in Chicago.
“I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge how proud I am of @ JimmyButler,” Gasol wrote on Twitter. “You’re one of the best players in the world, and a great leader!”
Gasol added, “Love you little bro!” Combine all that with the unmitigated manner in which Miami have embraced Butler, abrasive as he can sometimes be, and I’m not sure he needs the public’s validation.
“I’m so comfortable with being myself — more than I’ve ever been,” Butler said before the finals. “Not saying I’ve ever not wanted to be myself, but now I know ‘myself’ is the right way.”
“He’s such a likeable guy,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He won’t want anybody to know that, I guess. He’s totally cool with the young guys growing; he’s not territorial about it at all. He’s just about winning. He understands that he needs guys with him. All the big winners get that.”