Meet Jimmy Butler, The NBA’s Next Superstar
Jimmy Butler is the NBA‘s next superstar. He is having a breakout season with the Chicago Bulls. His road to stardom was as unlikely as anyone’s, and at the end of the season it will pay off for him in a big way.
Jimmy Butler had a decision to make. He and the Chicago Bulls had to come to an agreement on a new contract by Halloween or Butler becomes a restricted free agent at the end of the season.
The Bulls offered Butler a 4-year, $40 million deal. He saw Klay Thompson get a max deal (4 years, $70 million), and with all the work he put in during the summer, he bet that he could have a good enough year to get a max deal himself. Right now, it looks like a pretty good bet.
This season, Butler is averaging 21.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.5 steals per game on 49.8 percent shooting. He is also averaging an amazing 39.3 minutes per game.
“I don’t like the look of you. You gotta go.”
Butler came from a small town in Texas, Tomball. When he was 13, his mother kicked him out of the house. Her last words to him were “I don’t like the look of you. You gotta go.”
Butler spent the next few years, until his senior year in high school, bouncing from house to house, with whichever one of his friends could spare a couch or bed for a couple of days.
Then he met Michelle Lambert’s son, Jordan Leslie met Butler. When Butler had no place to stay, Jordan brought him to his house.
Lambert and her husband, Michael, already had seven kids. Each of them had three kids from previous marriages, and they had one together. Lambert couldn’t handle another child, could she?
Butler stayed with the family for a few days, then a little longer. Finally, Lambert told Jordan that Butler could stay for two nights and then he would need to leave.
On the third day, Butler was still in the house. Lambert asked Jordan “Jordan, it’s the third night, Jimmy’s still here, what’s going on? One of my other kids said, ‘Oh, Jimmy’s spending the night with me tonight.’ That’s when I realized they had beat us. We were like, ‘You little sneaky people.’ ’’
High school is over, but again he had to prove himself.
After his senior year, Butler had no offers from Division-1 schools. He had no help from his coach, who did not believe in his skills. Butler then enrolled at a junior college, dominated there, and then received scholarships from many high-profile schools.
Butler chose Marquette not for their basketball success, but for the academic record. Lambert, who for all intents and purposes was Butler’s mother, advised him to get a good degree in case basketball did not work out.
He started out slowly at Marquette, coming off the bench. His coach, Buzz Williams, was also very tough on him. “I’ve never been harder on a player than I’ve been on Jimmy. I was ruthless on him because he didn’t know how good he could be. He’d been told his whole life he wasn’t good enough. What I was seeing was a guy who could impact our team in so many ways. ”
At first, Butler took what was happening hard. He called Lambert, telling her he wanted to go back home. She would have none of that. Butler then got to working on his game, and went from being known as just a scorer, to an all-around player who could defend multiple positions.
After finishing at Marquette, Butler and Lambert hoped an NBA team would give him a shot. Before the draft in 2011, Lambert spoke on that subject. “I hope someone gives him a chance. No one gave him a chance. I guess we did, and look what happened. He finally had someone to make proud of him. If an NBA team gives him a chance, he’ll do the world for them. That’s what he did for me.”
The Chicago Bulls give Butler a chance.
In the 2011 NBA draft, Jimmy Butler got drafted by the Chicago Bulls with the 30th pick.
GM Gar Forman and executive VP John Paxson liked what they saw of Butler on film. They saw a hard-nosed player who could do well with a hard-nosed, demanding coach like Tom Thibodeau.
It turned out that Forman had a connection with Williams. When Williams was in
his late teens and early twenties, he wrote to hundreds of letters to coaches around the country, asking how he could break into coaching. Forman, an assistant at New Mexico State, received several of his letters.
When Forman met with Williams to talk about Butler, Williams gave him the truth about Butler. “Jimmy’s my guy,” he told Forman.
From the moment Butler got to Chicago, he was a gym rat. He lived in the gym, always working on his game. His offensive game was not progressing as well as his defensive game, however. That was until the 2013 NBA postseason.
“I’m a good role player on a really, really good team. A really, really deep team. I like role players. ‘Star’ has never been next to Jimmy Butler’s name, it never will be. I’ll always be just an under-the-radar dog.” -Jimmy Butler
Even though he struggled with his shot throughout the season, Butler kept at it. In the playoffs, he averaged 13.3 points and 5.2 rebounds playing 41 minutes a game. People started to see how good a player he was, and how great his suffocating his defense was. That defense…wow.
In his first interview after he got drafted, he said something every Bulls fan loved to hear.
When asked about his thoughts on getting drafted, Butler responded by saying “The thought that rushed through my head was my dream came true. I want to win games and I will do whatever it takes to help the Bulls win a championship. I’m a guard. I want to guard LeBron and Dwyane Wade and all those guys so we can get to that championship.”
Even as a rookie, Butler had no fear. He felt he could guard anyone. He WANTED to guard the best. He has shown in his 3+ seasons that he is more than capable of guarding the best. Last season, he was named to the Second Team All-NBA Defense.
Butler has shown that he won’t back down to any challenge or any player. In last season’s playoffs, Nene tried to get Butler out of his game by trying to bully him. With all that Butler has been through, bullying will be the last of his concern. He stood forehead-to-forehead with Nene, both looking like rams butting their heads. Then Nene got tossed out of the game and suspended a game. Even though the Bulls eventually lost the series, Butler shined.
Next stop, NBA stardom.
So what is the difference between the Butler of the last three seasons and the Butler of this season? Confidence. Over the summer, instead of staying in Chicago and training, he went back home. He rented an apartment, but did not furnish it. Whenever he got bored, he and his friends would just go work out.
“I wanted to be so good at the game that we didn’t have cable, we didn’t have the Internet,” Butler said. “Whenever we got bored, all we would do is go to the gym.
We’d eat, sleep and go to the gym. We’d go three times a day because we didn’t have anything else to do. We were sitting on the couch, looking at each other, saying, ‘What the hell are we going to do all day?'”
He also changed his diet so he could better take the rigors of an NBA season and postseason.
After this past summer, Butler’s confidence is through the roof. Where once he didn’t feel he was good enough for anything or anyone, he now steps on the court and dominates. So far this season, he leads the Bulls in minutes, points per game, PER and steals.
While everyone is concerned about whether or not Derrick Rose is going to play, Butler goes about the business of leading the Bulls. He is on his way to be named to his first All Star game, and he isn’t Chicago’s secret anymore. He is becoming a star right before our very eyes.
But don’t tell that to Butler, though. He still doesn’t view himself as a star. He talked about it with Nick Friedell of ESPNChicago.com. “I’m not a star,” Butler said. “I’m a good role player on a really, really good team. A really, really deep team. I like role players. ‘Star’ has never been next to Jimmy Butler’s name, it never will be. I’ll always be just an under-the-radar dog.”
His words may say that, but Jimmy Butler’s play says something completely different. He is on his way to becoming the NBA’s next superstar.