Jimmy Butler explains why he’s ‘hella happy’ with Heat. And Adebayo on Heat-Bucks matchup
A day in the quarantine life of Jimmy Butler includes workouts and ... not much else.
“Another day in the life. So bored,” Butler said Saturday night from his home in the San Diego area during an Instagram Live appearance with Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe. “... It’s the same [thing] every day for me. We’re in California. We wake up early as hell. So like we normally train at 5:30 a.m. and then we have not [expletive] to do for the rest of the day, literally.”
While sipping on a glass of wine during a 30-plus minute discussion on Bird and Rapinoe’s Instagram series called “A Touch More,” the Miami Heat’s All-Star wing spoke about life amid the COVID-19 pandemic and said he has not tuned into the popular “The Last Dance” documentary that chronicles Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls.
“I haven’t seen this MJ doc. I haven’t seen it,” said Butler, who still hasn’t signed with a new brand after his endorsement deal with the Jordan Brand ended a few months ago. “Everybody around my house puts it on every TV. And I’m just like you know what, everybody is watching it so I’m gonna go outside and work on my true calling and I just kick a soccer ball around.”
But basketball is still Butler’s full-time job and he again made it known how happy he is with the Heat. When asked by Bird and Rapinoe about his first season in Miami, Butler said: “I’m hella happy.”
Butler, who has an NBA reputation of being ultra-competitive, said of the Heat with a smile that “they’re crazy down there.” The 30-year-old signed a four-year, $142 million max contract to join the Heat this past summer and is averaging team-highs in points (20.2), assists (6.1) and steals (1.7) in his first season with the organization.
“Without a doubt. There ain’t a better place to be for me. Miami is it,” said Butler, who had portable baskets sent to each Heat player and coach in April as they wait out the NBA hiatus. “We got the right young guys, we got the right vets. [The young guys] get it. They get it and they’re thirsty to get back to hooping.
“I think I built bonds with a lot of my teammates on all my former teams. But this organization is special.”
▪ Butler indicated he’s not interested in playing for the USA Basketball national team at this stage of his career. The Heat duo of Bam Adebayo and Butler were named among the preliminary finalists to make the Team USA 12-man roster for the 2020 Olympics, which have been rescheduled for 2021 because of the pandemic.
Butler won gold with Team USA in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“I told [Carmelo Anthony] that if he plays [in the Olympics], I play,” Butler joked during the Instagram Live interview. “Melo said that he’s not playing.”
ADEBAYO WEIGHS IN
If the fourth-seeded Heat and top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks had stayed where they were in the standings when NBA play was suspended March 11 — and if they had won their first-round series — the teams this week would be meeting in the early stages of a second-round playoff series under normal circumstances.
The Heat won the only two games played between the teams this season (a March 16 game in Milwaukee was postponed because of coronavirus), and Adebayo indicated to Forbes magazine correspondent Chris Sheridan that Miami would have had a decent chance in a series between the teams.
Adebayo noted that the Heat was the only Eastern Conference team that had an unbeaten record against them, “and that gives us more confidence going into that boxing match. I’m not saying they can’t beat us, but we like our chances.”
Adebayo expressed some hesitance about a proposal to resume the NBA season at a neutral site, with players essentially placed in a bubble to protect them from coronavirus.
“They are going to have to give us time to get back in a groove, but it’s like riding a bike: You have to get back on it and get in that groove again,” Adebayo told Forbes. “The thing is, how do you get 450 players to agree to being kept away from their families for an extended period of time?”
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 9:05 AM.
