Jimmy Butler is not staying with the Golden State Warriors at the team’s hotel in Miami, Anthony Slater of The Athletic reported.
Butler and the Warriors are in Miami for the highly-anticipated emotional homecoming of the six-time NBA All-Star against his former team on Tuesday, March 25.
“As he did occasionally with the Miami Heat — in an arrangement permitted early in his time with the organization and grumbled about later — Butler will not stay at the team hotel during the Warriors’ four-day stop in Miami this week. It’s a rare in-season chance for him to spend extended time away from the arena with his three young children, who live there, so he’s staying somewhere with more space and privacy,” Slater wrote.
Butler did not also join the Warriors on their flight back home to San Francisco at the end of an earlier five-game road trip in Brooklyn on March 6.
The reason?
“To pick my kids up,” Butler revealed to Slater.
But Butler talked to Golden State coach Steve Kerr about his plan to fly separately from Brooklyn as a courtesy.
“I pulled Steve aside and said, ‘Steve, I’m finna fly home and grab my kids,’” Butler told Slater. “He said, ‘Oh, OK. Yeah. See you back in the Bay.’ Like nothing else. Nothing.”
Warriors Culture vs. Heat Culture
The Warriors have afforded Butler with the freedom to do anything he wants in between games. Kerr only made one condition, according to Slater.
“Show up on time and compete to win as part of the group. That’s it,” Slater wrote.
The conditions are aligned with Kerr’s family-centric culture he built which resulted in four championships over the last decade.
“We welcome personal quirkiness and individualism, and I think guys always feel a sense of freedom here,” Kerr told Slater. “I told Jimmy that from Day 1. I said, ‘You be you.’”
That’s why Butler was not worried at all when he told Kerr about his plan even on short notice.
“Because I was going to do it anyway,” Butler told Slater. “I’m going to let you know. But nothing comes before my family. Not a game. Not nothing. I’m going to go pick up my kids. Because I ain’t seen them since before the [expletive] trade. I need to see my babies.”
The Warriors culture’s looseness is the opposite of the famed “Heat Culture” in Miami molded by Pat Riley’s no nonsense approach to the game.
Jimmy Butler Doesn’t Want to Be Controlled
According to The Athletic report, it’s the controlling approach of the Heat which ultimately led him to request a trade.
“That’s too hard to do,” Butler told Slater. “You can’t control grown men in this line of work. You can try, but I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m going to show up. I’m going to compete and I’m going to help us win.”
So far, it’s working for the Warriors as they are off to a 16-4 start (16-3 with Butler in the lineup) since the trade. Interestingly, the Heat also started 16-4 with Butler after they traded for him in 2019.
Those were better marks than his first 20 games in his previous stops: 13-7 in Minnesota and 14-6 in Philadelphia.
Only time will tell if this is just a honeymoon stage for Butler and the Warriors.
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