As Jimmy Butler dribbled the ball up the floor in the dying seconds of Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals last May, he glanced over at the Heat bench to coach Erik Spoelstra.
Exactly 363 days earlier, Butler had found himself in an eerily similar position: the ball in his hands, dribbling up the floor against the Celtics, Miami down two, and a chance to eliminate Boston at home.
On that earlier night—Game 7 of the 2022 East finals—Butler pulled up from the right wing in front of Celtics center Al Horford and fired a three that rimmed out. The top-seeded Heat lost, and the Celtics advanced to the Finals.
Jeffery A. Salter/Sports Illustrated
The symmetry of these moments was not lost on Butler, who this time had dragged an eighth-seeded Miami team—which had already upset the Bucks, the No. 1 seed in the entire playoff field—to the brink of an improbable Finals berth. “Oh yeah, I was always shooting the three,” he says. “I started in front of Spo, and I turned to him and said, ‘I’m shooting this three.’”
Spoelstra returned a look to Butler that conveyed something along the lines of O.K., well, you’re the one with the ball.
“[Jimmy] thinks the same way I do,” says Heat president Pat Riley. “He wanted to get that one back. He doesn’t fear the moment. He rises to the occasion—he always has. And that’s why he is Jimmy. Freakin’. Butler.”
This time Butler dribbled from the left wing into a screen near the top of the key, forcing Horford to switch onto him. He kept dribbling toward the corner to find space, eventually launching with less than three seconds to go. This time Horford bumped Butler as he was rising up. Butler went to the line for a chance to give the Heat a lead.
“I drew the foul, which was good enough,” Butler recalls. “And I went up there and knocked down three free throws.”
Except it would not be a pleasant ending for the Heat, as Boston forced a Game 7 thanks to a miraculous putback shot from Derrick White, who escaped Miami’s Max Strus to grab an offensive rebound and score at the buzzer.
Or as Butler puts it, with a sly, mischievous grin: “And then Max let us lose!” (This is peak Butler—intensely serious in one moment, trolling a close friend in the next.)
Butler is a singular superstar, mixing playoff heroics, a roguish sense of humor and deep passions—when he’s not on a court—for anything but basketball. His point of view sets him apart from most of the league, and that’s why we asked Butler to draw on his unique perspective and serve as guest editor of Sports Illustrated’s 2023–24 NBA season preview.
Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald/Getty Images
The summer of 2019 was supposed to change the power dynamics of the NBA. The Lakers picked up Anthony Davis to pair with LeBron James. Reigning Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard left the Raptors to sign with the Clippers and recruited Oklahoma City’s Paul George to follow him. Kevin Durant left the dynastic Warriors to join forces with Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn. And in the seasons that followed, new partnerships formed, including this summer when the Bucks and Celtics, fresh off their defeats to Miami, added Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday, respectively.
Yet it’s the Heat—after acquiring Butler in the summer of 2019 from a 76ers front office that prioritized other players when his contract was up—who have led the NBA in both playoff wins and Finals appearances since ’19–20. “When you get a great player, your expectations soar,” says Riley. “[Butler is] the straw that stirs the drink. He’s got his fingerprints all over the success of this team over the last four years. Everybody rallies around him.”
Take, for example, Strus. After that Boston game, the despondent forward, 27 years old and in his third year with the club, was in the cold tub replaying the final moments in his head when he was approached by Butler. “I was in a dark place after that game, but he was the biggest reason why I was able to get out of it,” says Strus, who signed with the Cavaliers this offseason. Strus added that he is not surprised Butler is in a joking mood about the play months later: “He came and found me in the cold tub and said, ‘We’re going to win the next one. Don’t even worry about it.’ ”
And the Heat did, taking Game 7—after squandering a 3–0 series lead—thanks to 28 points from Butler. (Strus chipped in eight.) As was the case in 2020, when Miami lost to the Lakers in the bubble, the Finals didn’t offer a storybook ending. This time Denver, the top seed in the West, beat the Heat in a series that, despite going only five games, was closer than it really had any right to be.
Butler’s ability to look at what’s directly in front of him—and not dwell on the past—is one of his defining characteristics. It’s common for NBA players of Butler’s stature to mythologize the summer of despair after a difficult playoff defeat. You’ll often hear stories of superstars going into a dark place, replaying critical moments in their mind or growing Cast Away–esque beards as they ruminate on near-misses.
Larry Marano/Shutterstock
Days after the Finals, Butler flew to Brazil to attend a charity event—as well as a gender reveal party—for his close friend, soccer star Neymar. (“I’m 95% Brazilian,” claims Butler.) A few weeks later, he was in China, receiving adoration from fans as part of a multi-city tour to promote his shoe brand. He followed that up with a stint as a ball boy at the U.S. Open in New York. Later, he’d host a basketball camp and take on kids in short games of one-on-one. For good measure, he’s also working on a country music album, for which he has cowritten upward of 40 songs. All that has gone on in between the usual activities of practicing his latte art, finding the best sushi in town and challenging his friends in dominoes.
“I just like to do stuff other people get the opportunity to do,” says the 34-year-old Butler. “Not everybody can be a 6' 8" NBA player. But everybody could be a ball boy if they wanted to. I’m just like everybody else. I want to take my kids to school and go to these parent-teacher conferences. Don’t let the NBA title fool you. Because that’s the least of who I am.”
Butler is nonplussed about his most recent playoff run, during which he led the first No. 8 seed to make the championship round since the playoffs went to all seven-game series in 2003. Along the way, Butler erupted with several iconic performances. A 56-point masterpiece against the top-seeded Bucks in the first round. Another 42 in a Game 5 closeout. Snarling at Grant Williams en route to 27 points and a comeback win in Boston. Dropping 21 to hand Denver its one and only home loss of the postseason in a Game 2 Finals win that leveled the series.
“I don’t give a damn,” Butler says when asked how he feels about the Finals run. “We didn’t win. As we start off this new season, it’s the same goal as always since I’ve entered this league, and that’s to get my team to a championship. Last year was last year; we’re past that.” (Butler is also well past his Eastern Conference finals MVP award. He says he gave the trophy to his father—and neither of them currently knows where it is.)
Not even accomplishing the herculean task of taking a team from the play-in tournament to the Finals can move Butler, who can only muster sarcasm when asked what that accomplishment says about him. “It says I’m the greatest f---ing player to ever play this game,” he says in his flattest tone. “It doesn’t say anything. It goes to show the type of guys Coach Pat and Coach Spo have put around me. We just put our heads down and battle.”
Says Riley, “Warriors don’t live in the past. I like the warrior mentality. It’s all about now. Our future really is waiting for us.”
Jeffery A. Salter/Sports Illustrated
The speed and ease with which Butler can shift his focus to and from the court amazes his friends. They say whether it was following his epic scoring outbursts against Milwaukee or in the midst of nearly squandering that 3–0 lead in the Celtics series, Butler stuck to his routine in between games, rarely discussing basketball on his off days. Instead, he sipped coffee and challenged his pals to cards. (Speaking of coffee, Butler can’t recall the exact number of cappuccinos he drank before dropping his 56-piece on the Bucks, only that it was at least seven and possibly up to nine.)
Butler has few friends around the NBA and is basically never seen hanging with them off the court or palling around on their podcasts. His social circle is an eclectic mix, ranging from his childhood buddies to Irish singer Dermot Kennedy to Colombian reggaeton royalty J Balvin to top athletes in soccer and tennis. While in China, he religiously tuned in to his friend Carlos Alcaraz’s journey to the Wimbledon title. When Butler was in New York for the U.S. Open, he made sure to find time to get together with Balvin to play soccer.
Butler’s curiosity isn’t just boundless. It’s also obsessive. He is unable to dabble in something casually. For his BigFace coffee label—a business he started in 2020, selling to players and staff confined to the NBA bubble in Orlando—he spent part of his summer in ’22 in Cundinamarca, Colombia, to visit La Palma y El Tucán, a prized farm for producing specialty coffee. While there, Butler took part in cupping, a laboriously methodical process of sampling coffee that he would eventually sell. Butler observed and took part in every step of the journey, from the harvesting of the cherry fruit seed to sampling eight different cups of coffee at three different temperatures before helping select one for BigFace to offer this fall.
And everything is a competition with Butler. He does not take losing anything lightly, from volleying with his tennis pals to slinging cards with his friends. Butler’s cousin Marqueese Grayson says Butler has gotten so upset over losing a game of dominoes that he insisted on rematches until he won, causing them to miss meals. Grayson says there have been times they’ve played dominoes for 12 hours straight—including while on vacation in the Bahamas. Other times Butler has gone hours without talking to people (including his own father) due to how upset he gets when he loses. On the Heat’s team plane, Butler gets so intense during the card game Phase 10, he starts telling everyone else how to play their hands.
“Every time you’re with him, he’s going to find a way to compete at anything,” says Strus. “Whether that’s who finishes their coffee first, who plays cards the right way, who drives faster. It does get annoying for sure. But Jimmy has no relax button.”
When his attention turns back to basketball, Butler is just as intense. Since joining the Heat, he’s spent countless hours challenging the team’s two-way players in one-on-one, both to sharpen them up for the NBA and as an opportunity for himself to dominate. Strus went toe-to-toe with Butler often during his first year in Miami. He says he earned Butler’s respect by never backing down, but then he adds: “I could barely get a stop, and I could barely score most days. I was getting my ass whooped.”
“Jimmy don’t care who he plays against and where he plays them at,” says veteran Heat point guard Kyle Lowry, who is the godfather to Butler’s 4-year-old daughter, Rylee. “As long as he’s competitive and wins, that’s all he cares about.”
Lowry says the key to dealing with Butler is knowing when to quit and walk away.
“When it comes to dominoes, card games, Phase 10, I don’t even get myself into all that s---,” Lowry says. “Yeah, Jimmy, you go play. It’s just a waste of time.”
Jeffery A. Salter/Sports Illustrated
It’s late August, the tail end of Jimmy Butler’s summer of doing cool stuff, and Butler is drenched in sweat. Not from the oppressive South Florida humidity, either. Butler is indoors, inside the practice gym of a Fort Lauderdale high school. For the first few hours of the morning, he entertained everyone from children to corporate sponsors on the final day of his basketball camp. A couple of months after fighting through a sprained ankle all the way to the Finals, a few weeks after his international tour, a few days after his stint as a ball boy and a few minutes after taking part in drills with campers, Butler is determined to work on his game.
There are no trainers or coaches. Only Butler, two friends and two basketballs. He runs through a battery of exercises from several spots on the floor. At one point, Butler is so frustrated after a series of misses in a shooting drill, he lets loose a string of expletives before slamming a table so hard he sends water bottles flying in multiple directions.
That obsessiveness, the thing that drives Butler—both on the court and off it—is a perfect fit for a Heat organization known for its exacting nature. Even Butler, famous for his dedication to early-morning workouts, had to pass the team’s notorious conditioning test before his first practice. “When we signed him in 2019, it was the right time for him and the right time for us,” Riley says. “We’re about winning, and Jimmy’s about wanting to win.” It’s why Miami feels that a third title run is a possibility, even as the team lost Strus and point guard Gabe Vincent in free agency.
As for the upcoming season, sure, Butler may take the chance to avenge past defeats if the opportunities present themselves. But he won’t be digging into a well of despair to get himself hyped—even as he trolled the NBA on media day with his purported emo persona.
“I already lost, [what] the f--- you want me to do about it?” he asks. “Mope? I didn’t do my job. Oh well, sue me. But I’m gonna go home and play with my kids. I’ll beat my guys in dominoes and cards. And then we’re going to go on vacation together. We’re gonna drink some wine and have some really nice food.
“And then we’re gonna suit that s--- up in October. And I’m gonna whoop all y’all ass. Again.”
