Warriors excited for first full NBA season of the Jimmy Butler experience originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – Warriors rookie Alex Toohey’s introduction to star teammate Jimmy Butler was more than a lesson on the court. It was an eye-opener to the other side of the NBA as he walked around Butler’s San Diego home.
“I learned that you can do quite a few things with a bit of money,” Toohey said Monday at Warriors Media Day.
Butler hosted his Warriors teammates for a few days as a sort of minicamp before the official start of training camp. Basketball certainly was a focal point. Everything else was just as important, if not more.
The bigger goal one week before training camp begins was getting to know the small details of a group that is around each other more than their own families for over seven months, and even longer to reach the Warriors’ objective of contending for a championship. To become an unbreakable team, Butler, going into his 15th season, knows the intricacies of what it takes.
Wine was flowing, stories were told and laughs were had – just like it’s supposed to go with family. As he basically trademarked last season, Butler found his joy again once he was traded to the Warriors in February. Butler made it a point after the season to find time in the offseason to be around his new teammates when his busy schedule that spans the globe allowed him to.
But this retreat was different. He has found time to create chemistry in the past. Inviting a team into his home was an intimate decision Butler was set on doing in pursuit of his first title ahead of his first full season with the Warriors.
“Maybe a couple times, but not at my own home, and I just wanted to be around my guys,” Butler said of his San Diego minicamp. “I got the opportunity to see a lot of them over the summer or to go where they are from. Maybe not see them, but see people I know from their neck of the woods. So it was important for me to welcome – those are guys, like my family, into my home and have a good time and let them in a little bit of my life.”
If the 30 regular-season games and 11 playoff games Butler played after joining the Warriors was an appetizer of what’s to come, he and the Warriors are ready to devour a full four-course meal. Perhaps with a glass of Pinot on the side, too.
“I get to do this thing from day one,” Butler said. “Be with the guys from day one and do what we started out to do from the very beginning. I’m super hyped and I’m super excited. I got to train with my guys this summer. I got to talk with all the guys. I see what they have been doing. I see how they have been working. I’m glad that I get to be here from this media day on up.”
The Warriors were 25-26 last season before Butler’s team debut on Feb. 10. His Warriors introduction was a 21-point comeback road win against the Chicago Bulls, his original team, where Butler scored 25 points and had four assists. From that game on, the Warriors after adding Butler went 23-8 the rest of the regular season, losing the one game he missed.
They had two different five-game win streaks and one that lasted seven games. Their success together was on the fly, learning plays and how each other operates with little time to breathe. The Warriors saw what kind of team they can be with Butler, Steph Curry and Draymond Green all healthy, and are confident a real run at another ring was on the table if Curry’s hamstring held up.
That kind of tease has given them the ultimate confidence of a full offseason, training camp and preseason together before the real lights turn on.
“You can build an identity from the beginning,” Green said. “Defensive terminology and all the things that you build starting in training camp, we’re able to do that this year.”
Drama surrounded Butler going into last season, which wound up being his final one as a member of the Miami Heat. Tensions rose until they hit a boiling point, including multiple team suspensions that put an ugly end to all the good Butler did in South Beach. He’s at a completely different place one year later.
“I think first it helps him just as a human being, as a player, to have something that he knows, a situation he knows based on how last year ended and how we do things, what he can help, continue to help us do at a high level, but then just have that clarity coming in where we can have the conversations that we were having in a very short span after the trade last year,” Curry said. “And the way that we finished playing, or our record towards the end of the year, it was fun for all of us.”
Butler’s smile and outlook at media day matched the shine from diamonds on his ears and the rings on fingers. He’s at peace but hungry for more. The Warriors immediately signed Butler to a two-year, $111 million contract upon acquiring him in February, aligning him with Curry and Green to accomplish what those two have done four times: Win a championship.
The reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder are full of young players in their prime. Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves are coming for more. Kevin Durant and the revamped Houston Rockets are ready for battle, and Nikola Jokić’s Denver Nuggets never can be counted out.
Neither can the Warriors. Butler knows what he’s here for and sees last season’s short-lived success as just a taste of what’s to come.
“I don’t think we’re going to catch anybody by surprise,” Butler said. “I think everybody knows what we’re capable of. We’re ready to rock.”
Raphielle Johnson
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