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fictionadventurer · 3 years

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Father Brown Reread: The Absence of Mr. Glass

The consulting-rooms of Dr Orion Hood, the eminent criminologist and specialist in certain moral disorders, lay along the sea-front at Scarborough, in a series of very large and well-lighted french windows, which showed the North Sea like one endless outer wall of blue-green marble.

I like how the first and second collections both start with a story focusing on a professional detective who’s not Father Brown.

True to form, we’ve got a color word in the first sentence. And not only that--a hypenated color word! You don’t get much more Chesterton than that.

Everything about him and his room indicated something at once rigid and restless, like that great northern sea by which (on pure principles of hygiene) he had built his home. Fate, being in a funny mood, pushed the door open and introduced into those long, strict, sea-flanked apartments one who was perhaps the most startling opposite of them and their master.

Highlighting this because “Fate, being in a funny mood” is a great phrase.

But also because I love when the stories contrast Father Brown’s clumsy, homely shabbiness with characters who look more distinguished and accomplished.

"My name is Brown. Pray excuse me. I've come about that business of the MacNabs. I have heard, you often help people out of such troubles. Pray excuse me if I am wrong."

It’s odd that Father Brown is consulting another detective on this. He doesn’t seem the sort to seek out other help. He usually just winds up on the scene of the crime by accident.

It seems like he should have the confidence to solve the mystery himself.

It seems like the more natural way to bring Hood into the story would be to have the girl approach Dr. Hood and Father Brown just to be at the house for priest reasons before figuring out the mystery.

But maybe Father Brown’s stumped from lack of evidence and doesn’t have the time for an investigation. (Actually paying attention to his priestly duties for once?)

After all, it’s only luck that the crisis that gives them an excuse to investigate the apartment happens two minutes later.

And of course, the whole point of the story is getting this Holmes detective to the same crime scene as Father Brown to contrast their methods, so it doesn’t much matter how he gets there.

And there is a lot of fun in seeing shabby little Father Brown in this professional detective’s immaculate study.

"Oh, this is of the greatest importance," broke in the little man called Brown. "Why, her mother won't let them get engaged." And he leaned back in his chair in radiant rationality.

It’s not a full-fledged Father Brown story unless the mystery is centered on a romance, is it?

A stock Chesterton exchange: foolish-looking character says simple, silly-sounding statement as if it’s the most sensible thing in the world, before being forced to elaborate by a confused listener.

This story gives us Father Brown at his most silly-seeming. Here he’s not just unassuming and sheltered; he seems like one of Chesterton’s holy fools. He hasn’t looked this simple-minded since “The Blue Cross”

"Mr Brown," he said gravely, "it is quite fourteen and a half years since I was personally asked to test a personal problem: then it was the case of an attempt to poison the French President at a Lord Mayor's Banquet. It is now, I understand, a question of whether some friend of yours called Maggie is a suitable fiancee for some friend of hers called Todhunter. Well, Mr Brown, I am a sportsman. I will take it on. I will give the MacNab family my best advice, as good as I gave the French Republic and the King of England--no, better: fourteen years better. I have nothing else to do this afternoon. Tell me your story."

Sure, he’s a condescending ass, but I can’t help liking this guy. He’s got a good heart and a good sense of humor.

I kind of wish he’d have showed up in at least one or two other stories (preferably with a better end than Valentine).

The little clergyman called Brown thanked him with unquestionable warmth, but still with a queer kind of simplicity. It was rather as if he were thanking a stranger in a smoking-room for some trouble in passing the matches, than as if he were (as he was) practically thanking the Curator of Kew Gardens for coming with him into a field to find a four-leaved clover.

I like this metaphor very much.

Brown is still very, very much the simple little curate of “The Blue Cross”. But with the bumpkin traits turned up to eleven.

I’m very curious about Dr. Hood’s past cases, and how he achieved such renown.

"I told you my name was Brown; well, that's the fact, and I'm the priest of the little Catholic Church I dare say you've seen beyond those straggly streets, where the town ends towards the north.

Yet another parish! How many is this? This seems like the most distant, rural parish that Father Brown has yet had.

And Father Brown’s actually doing some work at it!

He seems to have quite a pocketful of money, but nobody knows what his trade is. Mrs MacNab, therefore (being of a pessimistic turn), is quite sure it is something dreadful, and probably connected with dynamite. The dynamite must be of a shy and noiseless sort, for the poor fellow only shuts himself up for several hours of the day and studies something behind a locked door. He declares his privacy is temporary and justified, and promises to explain before the wedding.

Doesn’t the landlady have a key to the door of her own lodger? Can’t she just demand to look?

British people, I tell you.

Unless the daughter is preventing her from looking, out of respect for her beloved.

And, you know, he does promise to explain, so it’d be rude to just barge in.

So why bother consulting the great detective in the first place? If Todhunter’s really on the up-and-up, he’ll explain eventually, they’ll get engaged, and all will be well.

he is tirelessly kind with the younger children, and can keep them amused for a day on end

Given Todhunter’s chosen profession, this makes perfect sense.

You see, therefore, how this sealed door of Todhunter's is treated as the gate of all the fancies and monstrosities of the 'Thousand and One Nights'.

Another Father Brown mystery built upon a fairy tale atmosphere.

To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring. Now the root fact in all history is Race. Race produces religion; Race produces legal and ethical wars. There is no stronger case than that of the wild, unworldly and perishing stock which we commonly call the Celts, of whom your friends the MacNabs are specimens. Small, swarthy, and of this dreamy and drifting blood, they accept easily the superstitious explanation of any incidents, just as they still accept (you will excuse me for saying) that superstitious explanation of all incidents which you and your Church represent.

A lot of the most racist characters in Chesterton are the most educated, scientific and progressive.

Granted, Chesterton does a lot of stereotyping along national lines himself. But usually it’s not with the idea that these differences are bad things. And certainly not with the idea that race is the cause of all war.

the door opened on a young girl, decently dressed but disordered and red-hot with haste. She had sea-blown blonde hair,

Is this the first blonde female love interest in these stories?

They were quarrelling—about money, I think—for I heard James say again and again, 'That's right, Mr Glass,' or 'No, Mr Glass,' and then, 'Two or three, Mr Glass.'

Given the eventual explanation of what’s really happening here, wouldn’t she have heard some other noises (possibly crashing noises?) alongside this?

"I do not think this young lady is so Celtic as I had supposed. As I have nothing else to do, I will put on my hat and stroll down town with you."

Wow, you were really just going to disbelieve her because of her nationality, weren’t you?

Playing-cards lay littered across the table or fluttered about the floor as if a game had been interrupted. Two wine glasses stood ready for wine on a side-table, but a third lay smashed in a star of crystal upon the carpet. A few feet from it lay what looked like a long knife or short sword, straight, but with an ornamental and pictured handle, its dull blade just caught a grey glint from the dreary window behind, which showed the black trees against the leaden level of the sea. Towards the opposite corner of the room was rolled a gentleman's silk top hat, as if it had just been knocked off his head; so much so, indeed, that one almost looked to see it still rolling. And in the corner behind it, thrown like a sack of potatoes, but corded like a railway trunk, lay Mr James Todhunter, with a scarf across his mouth, and six or seven ropes knotted round his elbows and ankles. His brown eyes were alive and shifted alertly.

The clues are laid out very nicely here.

This is one of the most Romantic (in the literary sense of the term) crime scenes in all of fiction. Every clue is as picturesque as possible.

"How to explain the absence of Mr Glass and the presence of Mr Glass's hat? For Mr Glass is not a careless man with his clothes. That hat is of a stylish shape and systematically brushed and burnished, though not very new. An old dandy, I should think." "But, good heavens!" called out Miss MacNab, "aren't you going to untie the man first?"

This entire segment is so funny. I laugh every time one of his long-winded deductions is interrupted by the common-sense demand to untie the man.

Now, surely it is obvious that there are the three chief marks of the kind of man who is blackmailed. And surely it is equally obvious that the faded finery, the profligate habits, and the shrill irritation of Mr Glass are the unmistakable marks of the kind of man who blackmails him. We have the two typical figures of a tragedy of hush money:

So much of the Holmesian deduction process relies on stereotypes, doesn’t it? Sure, Holmes doesn’t label people in “types” quite this way, but it relies on using the evidence to reach the most stereotypical conclusion without factoring in the random possibilities of life. (The suspect might have ink on his hands, but it doesn’t mean he’s a clerk). It’s fun that this story calls out that conceit.

"No; I think these ropes will do very well till your friends the police bring the handcuffs."

Okay, so there’s a sensible explanation for why Hood ignores their cries to untie Todhunter. But it doesn’t make the previous exchanges any less funny to read.

"But the ropes?" inquired the priest, whose eyes had remained open with a rather vacant admiration.

It’s interesting that Father Brown’s actually buying into this. My memory had him being more skeptical of the deductions, but he’s admiring the chain of logic being built here.

It’s kind of a nice change from the usual Chesterton tack of the mouthpiece character disdaining every scientific explanation.

It was not the blank curiosity of his first innocence. It was rather that creative curiosity which comes when a man has the beginnings of an idea. "Say it again, please," he said in a simple, bothered manner; "do you mean that Todhunter can tie himself up all alone and untie himself all alone?" "That is what I mean," said the doctor. "Jerusalem!" ejaculated Brown suddenly, "I wonder if it could possibly be that!"

And we’re off! I always love the moment when Father Brown puts everything together, and it’s especially satisfying here, after he’s spent the whole story sitting back and letting another man do all the detective work.

"His eyes do look queer," cried the young woman, strongly moved. "You brutes; I believe it's hurting him!" "Not that, I think," said Dr Hood; "the eyes have certainly a singular expression. But I should interpret those transverse wrinkles as expressing rather such slight psychological abnormality—" "Oh, bosh!" cried Father Brown: "can't you see he's laughing?"

Each sentence gives a vivid picture of the three different personalities here. The tender-hearted young woman. The too-practical man of science. And the brash common sense of Father Brown.

He shuffled about the room, looking at one object after another with what seemed to be a vacant stare, and then invariably bursting into an equally vacant laugh, a highly irritating process for those who had to watch it.

Irritating to watch, I’m sure, but very amusing to imagine.

"But a hatter," protested Hood, "can get money out of his stock of new hats. What could Todhunter get out of this one old hat?" "Rabbits," replied Father Brown promptly.

I love the hat conversation and these lines in particular.

He was also practising the trick of a release from ropes, like the Davenport Brothers

According to Wikipedia, the Davenport Brothers were an American magician act that toured England in the 1860s. They built on the Spiritualism craze and claimed all their tricks were done by spirit power. There isn’t much about what their tricks wer, (besides a couple of escape tricks and spirit cabinet things). Most of the Wikipedia article is about the many times their tricks were debunked. (Naturally, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle refused to believe they were frauds).

But the mere fact of an idler in a top hat having once looked in at his back window, and been driven away by him with great indignation, was enough to set us all on a wrong track of romance, and make us imagine his whole life overshadowed by the silk-hatted spectre of Mr Glass."

This isn’t so much a debunking of the Holmesian deduction methods as a case study proving why logical deductions have to be built upon sound premises. One mistake at the beginning can send you in a completely false direction.

"You are certainly a very ingenious person," he said; "it could not have been done better in a book.

I love when the characters get meta.

This is a very snide remark in context, but of course Father Brown proves himself.

Mr Brown broke into a rather childish giggle. "Well, that," he said, "that's the silliest part of the whole silly story. When our juggling friend here threw up the three glasses in turn, he counted them aloud as he caught them, and also commented aloud when he failed to catch them. What he really said was: 'One, two and three—missed a glass one, two—missed a glass.' And so on."

I can’t explain how deeply I love that the entire mystery is built on a pun. This one section is the reason this is one of my favorite Father Brown stories.

This drives home the idea that mysteries and jokes are the same types of story. They both require laying out information that’s put together into a surprising conclusion.

There was a second of stillness in the room, and then everyone with one accord burst out laughing. As they did so the figure in the corner complacently uncoiled all the ropes and let them fall with a flourish. Then, advancing into the middle of the room with a bow, he produced from his pocket a big bill printed in blue and red, which announced that ZALADIN, the World's Greatest Conjurer, Contortionist, Ventriloquist and Human Kangaroo would be ready with an entirely new series of Tricks at the Empire Pavilion, Scarborough, on Monday next at eight o'clock precisely.

I grew up on cheesy sitcoms. I’m a sucker for the “everyone laughs” ending.

If Todhunter’s willing to admit the truth here, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just admitting the truth right away. (I don’t buy the “he keeps it secret to keep his tricks secret” explanation. You can tell people you’d a magician without giving away everything about your act).

Does Mrs. MacNab let them get married? Now she knows he has a harmless vocation, but it’s not exactly a stable one. Would she let her daughter marry a guy so flighty that he can’t even settle on a coherent focus for his own stage show?

Given that the story ends here, we’re supposed to assume that she does. I guess he must be a successful performer--part of her mistrust came from the fact that he had too much money. So he and Maggie should have a comfortable life together.

I’m glad. He seems like a nice young man.

#lb this is all your fault #father brown reread #father brown #g.k. chesterton #the wisdom of father brown #the absence of mr. glass #i remember why i stopped doing these things #they take forever #'but they wouldn't take forever if you didn't comment on every second sentence'#'be quiet logical brain'#this one feels very subpar but i'm out of practice

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years

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Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler’s cell phone is shaking. We’re plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler leans over, looks down, smiles. He picks the phone up, shakes his head, then turns it around to reveal who’s on the other end. Coach Thibs. “See?” Butler says. “It’s crazy, right? He’s always on my phone.”

Everything about Butler’s place in this exact moment and time can and should be described as “crazy.” From the majestic hillside villa tucked away in Malibu—a remote paradise where the 27-year-old lives with a tight crew of friends, family, and paid aides (a photographer is sleeping in the guest house)—to the sudden reunion with Tom Thibodeau, the tireless coach who helped turn Butler into one of the least probable success stories in NBA history, to the Chicago Bulls needlessly trading Butler earlier this summer…the list can go on forever.

Butler’s origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don’t become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren’t oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with famous actors. And they certainly don’t accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Butler was voted onto his first All-NBA team last season, with scoring, assist, and rebound averages usually associated with someone headed to the Hall of Fame. (Butler tallied more Win Shares last year than Larry Bird when he won his first MVP). But there’s still room for improvement, and next season Butler will be surrounded by players with enough talent to relieve some of the pressure he’s felt in years past.

It’s been an intense, course-altering summer for Butler, whose reward for establishing himself as one of the world’s 15 best basketball players was the trade, three months ago, from Chicago to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a franchise that’s perpetually struggling to stand on its own two feet. But Butler—alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, two Rookie of the Year winners who can fill an ocean with their talent and upside—is poised to change all that.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Already one of, if not the, most physically fit individuals in a league overcrowded by the most athletic specimens on earth, Butler dedicated his summer to figuring out a way to get into even more ridiculous shape—the better to handle one of the NBA’s toughest workloads. (According to NBA.com, he ran more miles per game than all but two other players during 2016-17, and led the entire league in each of the previous two seasons.)

“The man, simply, is addicted to working,” says Butler’s personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

His weekly schedule consists of approximately nine hundred thousand hours of on-court basketball drills, spliced with a grueling workout plan that made my eyes water when I first heard it. Without an alarm, Butler is out of bed by 5:45 AM and on the court by 6:00.

“He’s a serial killer’s dream. He does the same shit every fucking day.”

Meals hardly deviate. It’s scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and a protein shake for breakfast. Lunch is Chipotle, with plain white rice, double chicken, light lettuce, and half a cup of vinaigrette (no cilantro). At night, his chef will prepare a dish around fish or chicken. He hasn’t had red meat in years and steers clear of alcohol.

When Butler isn’t drenched in sweat, most of his free time is either spent in his theatre watching the same movies over and over (Friday is a favorite), or escaping into never-ending games of Spades or dominoes. Yoga is on the docket. Nightclubs are not.

“He’s a serial killer’s dream,” says Butler’s personal strength trainer Travelle Gaines, who counts NFL superstars like Antonio Brown and Demaryius Thomas as clients. “He does the same shit every fucking day.”

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. “Want a beer?” He reaches into a brown Albertson’s bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it’s impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he’s doing) have pushed Butler out of his usual routine, but he doesn’t seem too worried about it.

“I’ll just make it all up in a short period tonight and be really tired in the morning when I wake up and start my schedule all over again, but it’s part of it,” he says.

The mood when Butler enters a room somehow relaxes and tightens at the exact same time. His personality glides from standup comedian to superintendent. He’s genuinely curious, cerebral, and a little mischievous. Ultimately, everything, from his schedule to his diet to the people he chooses to spend every waking minute around, is about efficiency. Even in this wonderland, with potted lemon trees at every turn, a hoard of wicker patio furniture, and a Southern California sun that dares anyone under it to do nothing but sip gin and tonics on end, Butler’s playfulness has limitations.

“I’m confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go.”

The conversation turns to his work ethic. He understands not everyone is as driven as he is, but can’t comprehend the thought of someone (especially another NBA player) not doing all they can to reach their full potential. It bugs him, even though he knows it shouldn’t.

“I think it’s wrong for me to think that people want what I want because in reality they don’t. Some people are OK with getting drafted. Some people are OK with playing two years in the league, four years in the league, six years in the league. Some people are OK with just scoring a basket in an NBA game. I’m not OK with any of that. I’m not satisfied until I win a championship,” he says. “I want everybody to work the way that I work and it’s wrong for me to think like that because people don’t do it! But in my mind I’m just like why? Why don’t you want to chase greatness the way that I do?”

Last January, after a humiliating loss in Atlanta that saw the Bulls blow a 10 point lead with three minutes left, Butler was fined for publicly dragging his teammates through the mud. After he was traded, former NBA player Antoine Walker called Butler a “bad locker room guy.” A recent report suggested the Boston Celtics had concerns about trading for the three-time All-Star because Butler might clash with Gordon Hayward, who they eventually signed in free agency.

Butler has little patience for people less driven than he is. Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports.

“Even as a first-semester freshman, he wasn’t gonna let guys drift through practice,” says Mike Marquis, Butler’s coach at Tyler Junior College. “He is very, very competitive, and he is great when he finds an enemy. I think that’s one of his charms. He knows how to psychologically find an enemy and attack it.”

I ask Butler if he’s a difficult person to be around.

“Yes,” he says.

But it’s not as simple as that. Difficult is in the eye of the beholder, just like laziness.

“But then again it’s bad on my part because I know better,” Butler says. “It’s kind of contradicting itself. It’s like, ‘Well Jimmy you know better, don’t do that.’ But then the other half is just like, ‘Well, if you can do it everybody can do it.’ But then it goes back again. ‘You know that it don’t work like that, right? Yeah, I know, but I think that it can so everybody needs to work like this.'”

“I think it takes a very special person to deal with Jimmy Butler,” says Gaines. “He’s actually too smart for his own good.”

Once the photo shoot ends, we migrate down to the main house. Ready to play Spades, Butler is hunched over a square folding table that’s been pummeled by thousands of domino tiles. He’s flanked by Phil Ducasse, his newly appointed personal photographer, Ifeyani Koggu, a former Arkansas State guard who Butler introduces as his brother, and Mike Smith, Butler’s mentee, of sorts, from Chicago who’s about to enter his sophomore season at Columbia. A chandelier the size of a kiddie pool hangs overhead. Boxes of Size 14 retro Jordans are stacked against the dining room wall, with loose jewelry and designer clothes casually spread across the table and floor.

Nearly two hours later the card game ends and Butler recedes to his theatre. He acknowledges that his whirlwind ascent altered relationships and transfigured his behavior in Chicago, but doesn’t feel taken for granted by the Bulls organization. Still, an old truism lingers: the one about how those who start in the mailroom can never shake how co-workers perceive them no matter how high they climb within the company. There’s a sense, from the outside looking in, that the Bulls didn’t appreciate how awesome Butler truly is.

He didn’t crack 400 minutes his rookie year. By his third season—his first of three straight appearances on the NBA’s All-Defensive second team—Butler averaged a team-high 38.7 minutes per game. That year he averaged 13.1 points. Two seasons later he was up to 20.9.

“I think they maybe expected me to stay the same, and I don’t think that that’s right. Like, I have changed. I will tell you that. But I think that I’ve changed for the better,” he says. “When I say for the better, whenever I was a rookie, averaging 0.8 points per game or whatever it might be, it wouldn’t matter if I scored that 0.8 because it wasn’t going to win or lose us a game. Now, you go forward a couple years when I’m averaging 20 points per game, that’s more than likely gonna cost us a game. It’s gonna be the difference between winning or losing. Am I right? So now I don’t give a damn about pressure, but if someone’s going to take the blame for something, who they gonna point to? Me. So yeah, I’ve changed, because I want to fucking win. I want to show that I can win. So the way I go about things, it’s not gonna be the way I went about things when I was a rookie, [when] I’m not gonna say anything. Now I’ve got something to fucking say.”

This is what he has to say. Or at least some of it:

“I’m confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go. Not everybody’s like that. [Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg] is not that coach, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are different coaching styles and people are gonna say—which is what they did say—’It’s gonna be Jimmy’s team or it’s gonna be Fred’s team.’ Two total opposite ends of the spectrum. They’re either gonna try to win it now or they’re gonna go young. And you see which way they went with it. Completely fine. Yo, it’s y’all’s business. It’s y’all’s organization. It’s cool. And now I’m in Minnesota and couldn’t be happier.”

Despite elevating his game to an all-time high last year, too often he was forced to be MacGyver, constantly scraping for useful contributions from his scanty supporting cast while refusing to let constant double and triple teams minimize his impact. The Bulls struggled to boil water whenever he rested on the bench.

Chicago ranked 28th in three-point rate and 24th in three-point percentage yet Butler still dragged them to the playoffs. The floor opened up a tiny bit when Nikola Mirotic played the four, but aging, antiquated guards like Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo too often made the offense feel claustrophobic. It wasn’t an ideal environment for a wing scorer to thrive, but somehow Butler did.

From 2015 to 2017, the percentage of Butler’s two-point field goals that were unassisted increased by just over 20 percent, but his True Shooting percentage didn’t fall. He finished with more Win Shares than LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, and Kawhi Leonard last year, and was third in “Real Plus-Minus Wins,” a stat that estimates how many wins a player contributes to his team’s season total, behind only LeBron James and Steph Curry.

“You can’t put somebody in a box and then have them think outside the box. Jimmy thinks like there’s no box, so he has no ceiling. Every day we wake up to break boundaries,” Johnson says. “I’m able to develop him as a point guard, as a shooting guard, as a small forward, as a power forward, and as a center. He’s a basketball player. He’s a scorer. He’s not a shooter. He’s not just a primary driver. He can do pretty much anything that is asked of him from his coaches because he allowed me to prepare him for every single situation. The only person who can stop Jimmy is Jimmy. He don’t have a flaw.”

Even for a person as motivated as he is, Butler’s journey to the NBA was a miraculous tightrope walk. There were no AAU connections or free sneakers. Butler is from Tomball, Texas, a slight town about 30 miles outside Houston. After his mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13, Butler couchsurfed through his teenage years before finding relative stability when his friend’s mother agreed to take him in. The story has been told often, but remains too incredible to be sensationalized.

For the typical prospect, coming to average 20 points in the NBA is less likely than purchasing a winning Powerball ticket. For Butler, it was less likely than holding said ticket while riding in the backseat of a limousine with Beyonce, eloping in Vegas.

Butler didn’t receive any scholarship offers out of high school, but he did get noticed by a scout named Alan Branch. Branch identified qualities his colleagues missed, and started to chirp in the direction of any coaches who’d listen. You guys are missing a steal. But no offers were made even after Butler played well in a couple spring tournaments. Nobody thought he was Division-I material.

“The biggest thing I can say is he wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t a freak talent, and he was in the bushes,” Branch says.

So instead of preparing for his first year at a school like Texas Christian University or Morehead State, Branch introduced Butler to Coach Marquis at Tyler Junior College, about three hours north of Tomball. He spent a day working out in their gym, scrimmaged with some of their players and local high-school competition, and was offered a spot right away.

“Mike never saw him shoot the basketball,” Branch said. “Jimmy played like four or five possessions, made the right passes, got a rebound. He was just solid. You could just see the IQ.”

It’s impossible to know what would’ve happened had Branch never brought Butler to Marquis’s attention. There were other junior colleges in the area that might have granted Butler a chance to walk on, but a few critical variables would’ve spun in unpredictable directions had he played anywhere else. To start, Tyler was very good, and good teams draw Division-I eyeballs.

Up until that point in his career, Butler mostly operated in the frontcourt. He crashed the glass, defended well, and offered a tenaciousness that probably wouldn’t have the same effect against bigger, stronger competition. But thanks to the team’s roster construction, Marquis shifted Butler to the perimeter on a full-time basis, forcing him to showcase a more appealing and varied skill-set.

“I didn’t think people would draft him out of junior college after one year, but I thought he was draftable,” Marquis said. “I called [Bulls general manager] Gar Forman, who I had known since he was coaching at Iowa State and New Mexico State, and said there’s something special about Jimmy. If they just continued to watch his progress, they’d really, really like him.”

Far and away the longest lasting benefit from his time in Tyler was who he met while there. Butler’s roommate that season was a 6’7″ wing named Joe Fulce, who was recruited to play for Marquette University by the school’s then-assistant coach Buzz Williams.

“Every time I went to go see Joe, of course, I would say hello to Jimmy,” Williams says.

Fulce—who’s now a graduate assistant coach under Williams at Virginia Tech—and Butler were like a pair of Siamese fighting fish (who also happened to be friends). They competed in everything and played countless games of one on one, after practice, before games; even at random times in the middle of the night—whenever Butler wasn’t hypnotized by his eight hundredth viewing of The Lion King.

“I don’t know how many times I’d either wake up in the morning or wake up at night and his ass is sitting in bed, eating some snacks, with his feet crossed, with a cowboy hat on, watching the damn Lion King with some country music softly playing,” Fulce said to VICE Sports. “His ass is weird.” (Butler still really loves country music.)

Butler led Tyler in scoring and guided them to a 24-5 record. All the while, Fulce relentlessly pitched Williams on his roommate’s all-around potential. A little while later Williams became Marquette’s head coach. Butler was the first player he signed. His letter of intent was famously faxed over from a nearby McDonald’s, and his first day on campus doubled as the first day of school. Butler still had Fulce as his roommate, but never visited Milwaukee beforehand.

“I think from day one until the day he graduated, he became much more confident in who he was on and off the floor,” Williams says. “I think he became less distrustful. His personality showed more often. He was much more comfortable. Obviously, that was an extended period of time where his environment and the people in his environment were stable.”

In three years, Butler never dropped a class, skipped a meeting with his tutor, or showed up late to a weightlifting session. In large part due to Butler being Williams’s first signing, there was inescapable pressure on them both to perform. And through some tough times early on, a mutually beneficial bond was formed.

“What can I say, in some ways I’m proud of it and in other ways I’m not proud of it,” Williams says. “I was hard on him. I was hard on him in every way. I never gave him any relief in any facet of his life, and to his credit he never wanted one. I think as our time together transpired, he expected that. He wanted that. He wanted that as an example to everybody else on the team.”

Butler says the lessons learned in three years at Marquette still resonate, and his relationship with Williams remains strong. Now the head coach at Virginia Tech, Williams gave Butler a journal during his second year in the league. He still writes in it.

Next year, the journal will be different. He’ll be in a new city, with a new team, and a new set of expectations—at least externally. Internally, Butler still has a bottomless urge to be great. He’s forever that serial killer’s dream. He rolls out of bed each morning focused and ready to go for a 90-minute session with Johnson. It’s the first of two workouts they fight through every day. They start by zooming in on ball-handling, finishing, floaters, runners, one-legged jumpers, off-balance jumpers, side pick-and-rolls, middle pick-and-rolls, pick-and-roll passing, and so on and so forth.

He’s already one of the craftiest and effective downhill playmakers in basketball, but for Butler to truly max out his potential in the coming seasons, that jumper needs to stabilize. Last year, he knocked down 36.7 percent of his threes, which is right around league average and an improvement on the previous season. But a higher percentage of his field goal attempts were launched from the inefficient mid-range, where he only canned 38.2 percent. On the whole, that’s not an atrocious number, but it badly trails positional peers like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Kevin Durant.

Later in the day, the second session with Johnson is devoted to shot mechanics—how he can better himself shooting on the move and off the bounce. They study preferable ways for him to create separation and sharpen his technique on fadeaways. Every workout is filmed, allowing Butler and Johnson to obsess over ball and hand placement. They really dig into the finer details that are necessary to make him a more potent all-around weapon.

After the morning workout, Butler rewards himself with a five-minute break and then embarks on a soul-crippling hour with Gaines. Gaines and Johnson work with other professional athletes but have still met with Butler almost every day for the past four years. They will continue to do so in Minnesota. When Butler goes on vacation, be it to Europe, Canada, Mexico, or Mars, Gaines and Johnson come along for the ride.

“I’m not cheap,” Gaines says. “But he pays whatever it costs and whatever it takes to keep his body right.”

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are reserved for corrective exercises, movement prep, movement training, and strength training. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for conditioning work and agility training. Saturdays and Sundays are strictly conditioning. Sometimes they race on the beach or hop on a football field to sprint 110 yards at a time.

Sometimes they’ll get back on an actual basketball court just to embrace the delightful sensation that a gasser can have on the human body. Gassers are timed sprints where, starting on the baseline, Butler has 17 seconds to go half the court and back, then dart to the opposite end line before returning to where he started. “We’ll do 10 to 15 of those,” Gaines said. It sounds like torture, but for Butler the entire process is more vital than oxygen.

There are obvious reasons to think the hard work will continue to pay off. This year, Butler may find that instead of doing more with less, he’ll have the chance to do more with more. In Minnesota, defenses will have to worry about Towns, Wiggins, and Jeff Teague, the kind of score-first point guard Butler hasn’t played with since Derrick Rose’s body broke down. He’ll be able to allocate more energy towards the defensive end—Butler failed to make an All-Defensive team for the first time in three years last season. Despite just four percent body fat hanging from his 230-pound frame, Butler still gets tired every once in a while.

If he can hunt for more open opportunities behind the three-point line instead of settling on tough, contested heaves, he can be one of the most efficient players in the entire NBA.

That won’t necessarily be easy. The Timberwolves actually finished behind Chicago in three-point rate last season. And given how their roster is built, Thibodeau will likely lean on dated lineups that can be exploited when up against modernized rotations. Gorgui Dieng and Taj Gibson will platoon the power forward position, even though they’re both better suited as backup fives. Life on the court may be cluttered once again.

But if Towns leaps forward on the defensive end, Thibs could deploy more versatile units that will accentuate Butler’s strengths. The floor will open up and, if that’s the case, it’s hard to see how he won’t be a legitimate MVP candidate. According to Synergy Sports, Butler ranked in the 77th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler last year. He was 95th in transition, 92nd in spot-up situations, and 91st in the post.

The Timberwolves boast a core that can, in Towns’s words, evolve into a dynasty. Butler likes the fit and is confident he can teach Thibodeau’s system to younger teammates who struggled to grasp it last season. But he’s also understandably cautious when it comes to attaching any bold claims to a group that ranked 26th in defense last year.

“I don’t like the word ‘Super Team’,” he says. “I think everybody’s human. That’s [what] people label Golden State. They’re a really really, really good basketball team. Super team?…On any given time they can be beat, too. It’s all about who’s playing basketball the best at the right time.”

Towns and Wiggins can fill an ocean with their upside. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

Dethroning the Warriors is goal number one. But even if the Timberwolves fall short, Butler will certainly use his time in Minneapolis to expand his fame over the next few years. With the league’s popularity increasing every day in countries all over the world, a genuine superstar’s brand is worth exponentially more than the $19.3 million Minnesota owes Butler this season. Off-court opportunities are constantly nipping at his attention. Three years ago, he took a 75 percent pay cut to go from adidas to Jordan, joining Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, and over a dozen other NBA stars. (During our day together, Butler poked fun at a camera operator wearing adidas tennis shoes.)

Bonobos, a menswear company that was recently bought by Walmart, made Butler their brand ambassador last August. And just this month he released his own signature underwear line with PSD, a company Kyrie Irving and Chandler Parsons are also affiliated with. (Butler’s photographer Phil envisions a coffee table book. “If Kim Kardashian can do it,” he says. “Why can’t Jimmy?”)

Last year, he dipped his toe in Hollywood by appearing in Office Christmas Party, a comedy his life guru Mark Wahlberg helped put him in. Butler met Wahlberg in 2013 while the actor was filming a Transformers movie in Chicago. They’ve been close friends ever since, with Butler citing the 46-year-old’s vigorous work ethic as one of the biggest inspirations in his life.

“He’s already one of the best at what he does, but he works as though he’s not. The guy wakes up at 3:30, 4:00 AM to work out. Then he’ll go take his mind off of stuff and play some golf,” Butler says. “He eats healthy and spends time with his family and he’s reading scripts and he’s in meetings and he’s on phone calls. Before you know it, it’s time to do it all over again the next day.” (Butler’s all-time favorite Wahlberg movie is Shooter. “Bob Lee Swagger is that dude,” he says.)

Butler played himself in Office Christmas Party, alongside Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. He wasn’t stiff in his only scene; the film’s two directors, Josh Gordon and Will Speck, were impressed by his initial foray into a brand new field. “LeBron surprised everyone in Trainwreck by being so fully formed as an actor,” Gordon told VICE Sports. “If Jimmy wanted to [act in the future], he could do it. He’s got that kind of charisma. It’s up to him.”

Butler isn’t sure how much longer he wants to be an NBA player, but hopes to squeeze in at least seven years, two championships, and widespread respect as one of his era’s greatest stars before his body cries uncle. (No big deal.) If he opts out of his player option in 2019, the former Most Improved Player can experience unrestricted free agency for the very first time; just about every team that can afford a max contract will be interested. Even though that level of courtship is something Butler has never gone through before, he’s yet to think about what it’ll feel like.

“I’ll tell you one thing. I’m gonna go or I’m gonna be or I’m gonna stay wherever I’m wanted, man. Because that’s all anybody ever wants,” he says. “To be appreciated.”

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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flauntpage · 7 years

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Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler's cell phone is shaking. We're plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler leans over, looks down, smiles. He picks the phone up, shakes his head, then turns it around to reveal who's on the other end. Coach Thibs. "See?" Butler says. "It's crazy, right? He's always on my phone."

Everything about Butler's place in this exact moment and time can and should be described as "crazy." From the majestic hillside villa tucked away in Malibu—a remote paradise where the 27-year-old lives with a tight crew of friends, family, and paid aides (a photographer is sleeping in the guest house)—to the sudden reunion with Tom Thibodeau, the tireless coach who helped turn Butler into one of the least probable success stories in NBA history, to the Chicago Bulls needlessly trading Butler earlier this summer...the list can go on forever.

Butler's origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don't become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren't oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with famous actors. And they certainly don't accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Butler was voted onto his first All-NBA team last season, with scoring, assist, and rebound averages usually associated with someone headed to the Hall of Fame. (Butler tallied more Win Shares last year than Larry Bird when he won his first MVP). But there's still room for improvement, and next season Butler will be surrounded by players with enough talent to relieve some of the pressure he's felt in years past.

It's been an intense, course-altering summer for Butler, whose reward for establishing himself as one of the world's 15 best basketball players was the trade, three months ago, from Chicago to the Minnesota Timberwolves, a franchise that's perpetually struggling to stand on its own two feet. But Butler—alongside Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, two Rookie of the Year winners who can fill an ocean with their talent and upside—is poised to change all that.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Already one of, if not the, most physically fit individuals in a league overcrowded by the most athletic specimens on earth, Butler dedicated his summer to figuring out a way to get into even more ridiculous shape—the better to handle one of the NBA's toughest workloads. (According to NBA.com, he ran more miles per game than all but two other players during 2016-17, and led the entire league in each of the previous two seasons.)

"The man, simply, is addicted to working," says Butler's personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

"He's a serial killer's dream. He does the same shit every fucking day."

Meals hardly deviate. It's scrambled egg whites, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and a protein shake for breakfast. Lunch is Chipotle, with plain white rice, double chicken, light lettuce, and half a cup of vinaigrette (no cilantro). At night, his chef will prepare a dish around fish or chicken. He hasn't had red meat in years and steers clear of alcohol.

When Butler isn't drenched in sweat, most of his free time is either spent in his theatre watching the same movies over and over (Friday is a favorite), or escaping into never-ending games of Spades or dominoes. Yoga is on the docket. Nightclubs are not.

"He's a serial killer's dream," says Butler's personal strength trainer Travelle Gaines, who counts NFL superstars like Antonio Brown and Demaryius Thomas as clients. "He does the same shit every fucking day."

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. "Want a beer?" He reaches into a brown Albertson's bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it's impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he's doing) have pushed Butler out of his usual routine, but he doesn't seem too worried about it.

"I'll just make it all up in a short period tonight and be really tired in the morning when I wake up and start my schedule all over again, but it's part of it," he says.

The mood when Butler enters a room somehow relaxes and tightens at the exact same time. His personality glides from standup comedian to superintendent. He's genuinely curious, cerebral, and a little mischievous. Ultimately, everything, from his schedule to his diet to the people he chooses to spend every waking minute around, is about efficiency. Even in this wonderland, with potted lemon trees at every turn, a hoard of wicker patio furniture, and a Southern California sun that dares anyone under it to do nothing but sip gin and tonics on end, Butler's playfulness has limitations.

"I'm confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go."

The conversation turns to his work ethic. He understands not everyone is as driven as he is, but can't comprehend the thought of someone (especially another NBA player) not doing all they can to reach their full potential. It bugs him, even though he knows it shouldn't.

"I think it's wrong for me to think that people want what I want because in reality they don't. Some people are OK with getting drafted. Some people are OK with playing two years in the league, four years in the league, six years in the league. Some people are OK with just scoring a basket in an NBA game. I'm not OK with any of that. I'm not satisfied until I win a championship," he says. "I want everybody to work the way that I work and it's wrong for me to think like that because people don't do it! But in my mind I'm just like why? Why don't you want to chase greatness the way that I do?"

Last January, after a humiliating loss in Atlanta that saw the Bulls blow a 10 point lead with three minutes left, Butler was fined for publicly dragging his teammates through the mud. After he was traded, former NBA player Antoine Walker called Butler a "bad locker room guy." A recent report suggested the Boston Celtics had concerns about trading for the three-time All-Star because Butler might clash with Gordon Hayward, who they eventually signed in free agency.

Butler has little patience for people less driven than he is. Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports.

"Even as a first-semester freshman, he wasn't gonna let guys drift through practice," says Mike Marquis, Butler's coach at Tyler Junior College. "He is very, very competitive, and he is great when he finds an enemy. I think that's one of his charms. He knows how to psychologically find an enemy and attack it."

I ask Butler if he's a difficult person to be around.

"Yes," he says.

But it's not as simple as that. Difficult is in the eye of the beholder, just like laziness.

"But then again it's bad on my part because I know better," Butler says. "It's kind of contradicting itself. It's like, 'Well Jimmy you know better, don't do that.' But then the other half is just like, 'Well, if you can do it everybody can do it.' But then it goes back again. 'You know that it don't work like that, right? Yeah, I know, but I think that it can so everybody needs to work like this.'"

"I think it takes a very special person to deal with Jimmy Butler," says Gaines. "He's actually too smart for his own good."

Once the photo shoot ends, we migrate down to the main house. Ready to play Spades, Butler is hunched over a square folding table that's been pummeled by thousands of domino tiles. He's flanked by Phil Ducasse, his newly appointed personal photographer, Ifeyani Koggu, a former Arkansas State guard who Butler introduces as his brother, and Mike Smith, Butler's mentee, of sorts, from Chicago who's about to enter his sophomore season at Columbia. A chandelier the size of a kiddie pool hangs overhead. Boxes of Size 14 retro Jordans are stacked against the dining room wall, with loose jewelry and designer clothes casually spread across the table and floor.

Nearly two hours later the card game ends and Butler recedes to his theatre. He acknowledges that his whirlwind ascent altered relationships and transfigured his behavior in Chicago, but doesn't feel taken for granted by the Bulls organization. Still, an old truism lingers: the one about how those who start in the mailroom can never shake how co-workers perceive them no matter how high they climb within the company. There's a sense, from the outside looking in, that the Bulls didn't appreciate how awesome Butler truly is.

He didn't crack 400 minutes his rookie year. By his third season—his first of three straight appearances on the NBA's All-Defensive second team—Butler averaged a team-high 38.7 minutes per game. That year he averaged 13.1 points. Two seasons later he was up to 20.9.

"I think they maybe expected me to stay the same, and I don't think that that's right. Like, I have changed. I will tell you that. But I think that I've changed for the better," he says. "When I say for the better, whenever I was a rookie, averaging 0.8 points per game or whatever it might be, it wouldn't matter if I scored that 0.8 because it wasn't going to win or lose us a game. Now, you go forward a couple years when I'm averaging 20 points per game, that's more than likely gonna cost us a game. It's gonna be the difference between winning or losing. Am I right? So now I don't give a damn about pressure, but if someone's going to take the blame for something, who they gonna point to? Me. So yeah, I've changed, because I want to fucking win. I want to show that I can win. So the way I go about things, it's not gonna be the way I went about things when I was a rookie, [when] I'm not gonna say anything. Now I've got something to fucking say."

This is what he has to say. Or at least some of it:

"I'm confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go. Not everybody's like that. [Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg] is not that coach, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are different coaching styles and people are gonna say—which is what they did say—'It's gonna be Jimmy's team or it's gonna be Fred's team.' Two total opposite ends of the spectrum. They're either gonna try to win it now or they're gonna go young. And you see which way they went with it. Completely fine. Yo, it's y'all's business. It's y'all's organization. It's cool. And now I'm in Minnesota and couldn't be happier."

Chicago ranked 28th in three-point rate and 24th in three-point percentage yet Butler still dragged them to the playoffs. The floor opened up a tiny bit when Nikola Mirotic played the four, but aging, antiquated guards like Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo too often made the offense feel claustrophobic. It wasn't an ideal environment for a wing scorer to thrive, but somehow Butler did.

From 2015 to 2017, the percentage of Butler's two-point field goals that were unassisted increased by just over 20 percent, but his True Shooting percentage didn't fall. He finished with more Win Shares than LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, and Kawhi Leonard last year, and was third in "Real Plus-Minus Wins," a stat that estimates how many wins a player contributes to his team's season total, behind only LeBron James and Steph Curry.

"You can't put somebody in a box and then have them think outside the box. Jimmy thinks like there's no box, so he has no ceiling. Every day we wake up to break boundaries," Johnson says. "I'm able to develop him as a point guard, as a shooting guard, as a small forward, as a power forward, and as a center. He's a basketball player. He's a scorer. He's not a shooter. He's not just a primary driver. He can do pretty much anything that is asked of him from his coaches because he allowed me to prepare him for every single situation. The only person who can stop Jimmy is Jimmy. He don't have a flaw."

Even for a person as motivated as he is, Butler's journey to the NBA was a miraculous tightrope walk. There were no AAU connections or free sneakers. Butler is from Tomball, Texas, a slight town about 30 miles outside Houston. After his mother kicked him out of the house when he was 13, Butler couchsurfed through his teenage years before finding relative stability when his friend's mother agreed to take him in. The story has been told often, but remains too incredible to be sensationalized.

Butler didn't receive any scholarship offers out of high school, but he did get noticed by a scout named Alan Branch. Branch identified qualities his colleagues missed, and started to chirp in the direction of any coaches who'd listen. You guys are missing a steal. But no offers were made even after Butler played well in a couple spring tournaments. Nobody thought he was Division-I material.

"The biggest thing I can say is he wasn't flashy, he wasn't a freak talent, and he was in the bushes," Branch says.

"Mike never saw him shoot the basketball," Branch said. "Jimmy played like four or five possessions, made the right passes, got a rebound. He was just solid. You could just see the IQ."

It's impossible to know what would've happened had Branch never brought Butler to Marquis's attention. There were other junior colleges in the area that might have granted Butler a chance to walk on, but a few critical variables would've spun in unpredictable directions had he played anywhere else. To start, Tyler was very good, and good teams draw Division-I eyeballs.

Up until that point in his career, Butler mostly operated in the frontcourt. He crashed the glass, defended well, and offered a tenaciousness that probably wouldn't have the same effect against bigger, stronger competition. But thanks to the team's roster construction, Marquis shifted Butler to the perimeter on a full-time basis, forcing him to showcase a more appealing and varied skill-set.

"I didn't think people would draft him out of junior college after one year, but I thought he was draftable," Marquis said. "I called [Bulls general manager] Gar Forman, who I had known since he was coaching at Iowa State and New Mexico State, and said there's something special about Jimmy. If they just continued to watch his progress, they'd really, really like him."

Far and away the longest lasting benefit from his time in Tyler was who he met while there. Butler's roommate that season was a 6'7" wing named Joe Fulce, who was recruited to play for Marquette University by the school's then-assistant coach Buzz Williams.

"Every time I went to go see Joe, of course, I would say hello to Jimmy," Williams says.

Fulce—who's now a graduate assistant coach under Williams at Virginia Tech—and Butler were like a pair of Siamese fighting fish (who also happened to be friends). They competed in everything and played countless games of one on one, after practice, before games; even at random times in the middle of the night—whenever Butler wasn't hypnotized by his eight hundredth viewing of The Lion King.

"I don't know how many times I'd either wake up in the morning or wake up at night and his ass is sitting in bed, eating some snacks, with his feet crossed, with a cowboy hat on, watching the damn Lion King with some country music softly playing," Fulce said to VICE Sports. "His ass is weird." (Butler still really loves country music.)

Butler led Tyler in scoring and guided them to a 24-5 record. All the while, Fulce relentlessly pitched Williams on his roommate's all-around potential. A little while later Williams became Marquette's head coach. Butler was the first player he signed. His letter of intent was famously faxed over from a nearby McDonald's, and his first day on campus doubled as the first day of school. Butler still had Fulce as his roommate, but never visited Milwaukee beforehand.

"I think from day one until the day he graduated, he became much more confident in who he was on and off the floor," Williams says. "I think he became less distrustful. His personality showed more often. He was much more comfortable. Obviously, that was an extended period of time where his environment and the people in his environment were stable."

In three years, Butler never dropped a class, skipped a meeting with his tutor, or showed up late to a weightlifting session. In large part due to Butler being Williams's first signing, there was inescapable pressure on them both to perform. And through some tough times early on, a mutually beneficial bond was formed.

"What can I say, in some ways I'm proud of it and in other ways I'm not proud of it," Williams says. "I was hard on him. I was hard on him in every way. I never gave him any relief in any facet of his life, and to his credit he never wanted one. I think as our time together transpired, he expected that. He wanted that. He wanted that as an example to everybody else on the team."

Next year, the journal will be different. He'll be in a new city, with a new team, and a new set of expectations—at least externally. Internally, Butler still has a bottomless urge to be great. He's forever that serial killer's dream. He rolls out of bed each morning focused and ready to go for a 90-minute session with Johnson. It's the first of two workouts they fight through every day. They start by zooming in on ball-handling, finishing, floaters, runners, one-legged jumpers, off-balance jumpers, side pick-and-rolls, middle pick-and-rolls, pick-and-roll passing, and so on and so forth.

He's already one of the craftiest and effective downhill playmakers in basketball, but for Butler to truly max out his potential in the coming seasons, that jumper needs to stabilize. Last year, he knocked down 36.7 percent of his threes, which is right around league average and an improvement on the previous season. But a higher percentage of his field goal attempts were launched from the inefficient mid-range, where he only canned 38.2 percent. On the whole, that's not an atrocious number, but it badly trails positional peers like Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Kevin Durant.

"I'm not cheap," Gaines says. "But he pays whatever it costs and whatever it takes to keep his body right."

Sometimes they'll get back on an actual basketball court just to embrace the delightful sensation that a gasser can have on the human body. Gassers are timed sprints where, starting on the baseline, Butler has 17 seconds to go half the court and back, then dart to the opposite end line before returning to where he started. "We'll do 10 to 15 of those," Gaines said. It sounds like torture, but for Butler the entire process is more vital than oxygen.

There are obvious reasons to think the hard work will continue to pay off. This year, Butler may find that instead of doing more with less, he'll have the chance to do more with more. In Minnesota, defenses will have to worry about Towns, Wiggins, and Jeff Teague, the kind of score-first point guard Butler hasn't played with since Derrick Rose's body broke down. He'll be able to allocate more energy towards the defensive end—Butler failed to make an All-Defensive team for the first time in three years last season. Despite just four percent body fat hanging from his 230-pound frame, Butler still gets tired every once in a while.

If he can hunt for more open opportunities behind the three-point line instead of settling on tough, contested heaves, he can be one of the most efficient players in the entire NBA.

That won't necessarily be easy. The Timberwolves actually finished behind Chicago in three-point rate last season. And given how their roster is built, Thibodeau will likely lean on dated lineups that can be exploited when up against modernized rotations. Gorgui Dieng and Taj Gibson will platoon the power forward position, even though they're both better suited as backup fives. Life on the court may be cluttered once again.

But if Towns leaps forward on the defensive end, Thibs could deploy more versatile units that will accentuate Butler's strengths. The floor will open up and, if that's the case, it's hard to see how he won't be a legitimate MVP candidate. According to Synergy Sports, Butler ranked in the 77th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler last year. He was 95th in transition, 92nd in spot-up situations, and 91st in the post.

The Timberwolves boast a core that can, in Towns's words, evolve into a dynasty. Butler likes the fit and is confident he can teach Thibodeau's system to younger teammates who struggled to grasp it last season. But he's also understandably cautious when it comes to attaching any bold claims to a group that ranked 26th in defense last year.

"I don't like the word 'Super Team'," he says. "I think everybody's human. That's [what] people label Golden State. They're a really really, really good basketball team. Super team?...On any given time they can be beat, too. It's all about who's playing basketball the best at the right time."

Towns and Wiggins can fill an ocean with their upside. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

Dethroning the Warriors is goal number one. But even if the Timberwolves fall short, Butler will certainly use his time in Minneapolis to expand his fame over the next few years. With the league's popularity increasing every day in countries all over the world, a genuine superstar's brand is worth exponentially more than the $19.3 million Minnesota owes Butler this season. Off-court opportunities are constantly nipping at his attention. Three years ago, he took a 75 percent pay cut to go from adidas to Jordan, joining Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, and over a dozen other NBA stars. (During our day together, Butler poked fun at a camera operator wearing adidas tennis shoes.)

Bonobos, a menswear company that was recently bought by Walmart, made Butler their brand ambassador last August. And just this month he released his own signature underwear line with PSD, a company Kyrie Irving and Chandler Parsons are also affiliated with. (Butler's photographer Phil envisions a coffee table book. "If Kim Kardashian can do it," he says. "Why can't Jimmy?")

Last year, he dipped his toe in Hollywood by appearing in Office Christmas Party, a comedy his life guru Mark Wahlberg helped put him in. Butler met Wahlberg in 2013 while the actor was filming a Transformers movie in Chicago. They've been close friends ever since, with Butler citing the 46-year-old's vigorous work ethic as one of the biggest inspirations in his life.

"He's already one of the best at what he does, but he works as though he's not. The guy wakes up at 3:30, 4:00 AM to work out. Then he'll go take his mind off of stuff and play some golf," Butler says. "He eats healthy and spends time with his family and he's reading scripts and he's in meetings and he's on phone calls. Before you know it, it's time to do it all over again the next day." (Butler's all-time favorite Wahlberg movie is Shooter. "Bob Lee Swagger is that dude," he says.)

Butler played himself in Office Christmas Party, alongside Jason Bateman and Olivia Munn. He wasn't stiff in his only scene; the film's two directors, Josh Gordon and Will Speck, were impressed by his initial foray into a brand new field. "LeBron surprised everyone in Trainwreck by being so fully formed as an actor," Gordon told VICE Sports. "If Jimmy wanted to [act in the future], he could do it. He's got that kind of charisma. It's up to him."

Butler isn't sure how much longer he wants to be an NBA player, but hopes to squeeze in at least seven years, two championships, and widespread respect as one of his era's greatest stars before his body cries uncle. (No big deal.) If he opts out of his player option in 2019, the former Most Improved Player can experience unrestricted free agency for the very first time; just about every team that can afford a max contract will be interested. Even though that level of courtship is something Butler has never gone through before, he's yet to think about what it'll feel like.

"I'll tell you one thing," he says. "I'm gonna go or I'm gonna be or I'm gonna stay wherever I'm wanted, man. Because that's all anybody ever wants," he says. "To be appreciated."

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years

Text

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler’s cell phone is shaking. We’re plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler’s origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don’t become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren’t oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with movie stars. And they certainly don’t accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

“The man, simply, is addicted to working,” says Butler’s personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

“He’s a serial killer’s dream. He does the same shit every fucking day.”

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. “Want a beer?” He reaches into a brown Albertson’s bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it’s impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he’s doing) have pushed Butler’s out of his usual routine, but he doesn’t seem too worried about it.

“I’ll just make it all up in a short period tonight and be really tired in the morning when I wake up and start my schedule all over again, but it’s part of it,” he says.

“I’m confrontational. I feed off of confrontation. It makes me go.”

Butler has little patience for people less driven than he is. Photo: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports.

I ask Butler if he’s a difficult person to be around.

“Yes,” he says.

But it’s not as simple as that. Difficult is in the eye of the beholder, just like laziness.

“I think it takes a very special person to deal with Jimmy Butler,” says Gaines. “He’s actually too smart for his own good.”

This is what he has to say. Or at least some of it:

“The biggest thing I can say is he wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t a freak talent, and he was in the bushes,” Branch says.

“Mike never saw him shoot the basketball,” Branch said. “Jimmy played like four or five possessions, made the right passes, got a rebound. He was just solid. You could just see the IQ.”

“Every time I went to go see Joe, of course, I would say hello to Jimmy,” Williams says.

“I’m not cheap,” Gaines says. “But he pays whatever it costs and whatever it takes to keep his body right.”

If he can hunt for more open opportunities behind the three-point line instead of settling on tough, contested heaves, he can be one of the most efficient players in the entire NBA.

Towns and Wiggins can fill an ocean with their upside. Photo: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “I’m gonna go or I’m gonna be or I’m gonna stay wherever I’m wanted, man. Because that’s all anybody ever wants,” he says. “To be appreciated.”

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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flauntpage · 7 years

Text

Jimmy Butler Has Something To Say

Jimmy Butler's cell phone is shaking. We're plopped down in the last row of his home theatre on a couch that feels like a velvet sponge, a blanket covers his outstretched legs.

Butler's origin story is absurd. Small town Texas kids with no scholarship offers out of high school don't become NBA role players, much less superstars. They aren't oddball country music-loving characters who pal around with movie stars. And they certainly don't accomplish all they have while going out of their way to stand tall as a positive figure off the court. Butler won the NBA Cares Community Assist Award last April, and says he aspires to use his broadening platform to navigate the contentious social issues that plague the country. But his rags to riches past and lavish present are not as moving as what promises to lie ahead.

Butler was voted onto his first All-NBA team last season, with scoring, assist, and rebound averages usually associated with someone headed to the Hall of Fame. (Butler tallied more Win Shares last year than Larry Bird when he won his first MVP). But there's still room for improvement, and next season Butler will be surrounded by players with enough talent to relieve some of the pressure he's felt in years past.

Coach Thibs is always calling Butler—and always calling his number. Photo: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Already one of, if not the, most physically fit individuals in a league overcrowded by the most athletic specimens on earth, Butler dedicated his summer to figuring out a way to get into even more ridiculous shape—the better to handle one of the NBA's toughest workloads. (According to NBA.com, he ran more miles per game than all but two other players during 2016-17, and led the entire league in each of the previous two seasons.)

"The man, simply, is addicted to working," says Butler's personal skills trainer Chris Johnson.

"He's a serial killer's dream. He does the same shit every fucking day."

Butler is shirtless in tan pants and Jordan slides when we first meet outside his pool house. "Want a beer?" He reaches into a brown Albertson's bag and removes a cold can of Michelob Ultra. His hair is braided tight like a crown, and it's impossible not to notice how much his chest looks like gladiator armor. This is also a reminder that our interview (and a photo shoot he's doing) have pushed Butler's out of his usual routine, but he doesn't seem too worried about it.