If there is no talent, then let the effort become your own talent.
1.
Before coming to Miami, my reputation had fallen to the bottom.
In Chicago, I was a man who fought for the boss position with Rose, the son of the Windy City.
In Minnesota, I was a guy who scolded two proud sons of heaven in an intra-team training session.
In Philadelphia, I was the one who had only been in the middle of the season and parted ways with two emperors.
Thorns, cancers, coach killers have been my labels for the past few years.
Selfishness, arbitrariness, and obsession with the boss have become my personalities in the past few years.
I was so confused in the offseason of 2019 that I didn't know where to go.
It wasn't until my college senior, Dwayne Wade, recommended it to Pat Riley that I was able to get a job in Miami.
The world says I'm a team cancerous, narrow-minded, extreme, and even some people who don't understand the world.
But if you know the story behind me, you will understand my tough life.
2.
"I don't like your looks, and you don't want to go home from now on."
This was my mother's last words to me. Then she slammed the door shut, leaving me and my luggage scattered all over the floor, standing low and overwhelmed.
I distinctly remember that it was 2002, when I had just turned 13.
I had a brief moment of sadness, but then came back to reality. Because this is the second time I have been abandoned by my relatives — the first time was when I was 1 year old, my father abandoned me and my mother.
To survive, I lived in truck cars, park benches, bridge holes in bridges, and I huddled with homeless people covered in lice.
It was also then that I knew that in order to survive, I had to be tough at all times.
Winter in Houston is a little earlier, and the carriages, benches, and bridge holes are no longer habitable.
In order to find a warm bed, I knocked on the doors of all my friends in The Tomball district, and the best explanation they gave me after asking my parents was: "Only stay 1 or 2 nights, not for long periods of time." "I know that no family wants to take in a homeless child who has nothing to do with them for a long time, and it is already great news for me to be able to spend the current night. For tomorrow, I never thought about it.
At that time, I had nothing, only basketball accompanied me.
3.
These days continued until my junior year of high school.
That year, I met the most important person in my life, Jordan Leslie, an athletic athlete from the same high school as me, who was good at football and basketball, who was radiant in school, who fell in love with countless girls, and who every boy dreamed of being like him.
After a summer league game in my senior year, Leslie came up to me and asked to go head-to-head with me, on the grounds that he thought I was the strongest basketball player in the high school.
I thought he must have gone crazy, but this moment ignited my passion and desire to win.
I have long forgotten the outcome of the victory or defeat, and I always vaguely remember that I defeated him.
Importantly, after a few heads-ups, Leslie and I became best friends, and in addition to our shared love of basketball, similar experiences were one of the big reasons we became friends — in his childhood, his father died in a car accident that Made Leslie hard to accept for a long time. It wasn't until he was exposed to baseball and basketball that he came out of those tough days.
After hearing my story, Leslie cordially invited me to stay in his house, patting me on the chest and assuring me that it would be up to him to explain it to his mother and stepfather.
For me, it was incredibly tough.
Since Leslie is a restructured family, and they already have 7 children, I don't think his parents would accept someone who has nothing to do with them and has only fought bulls with their son a few times to live in the family.
Leslie's mother, Michelle Lambert, told me that I could only stay here for a few nights and needed to live upstairs alone.
I said yes.
Leslie's 6 siblings are all incredibly interesting, and they don't dislike my wandering identity and bad past. I became good friends with them. It wasn't until the one-week deadline had come to an end that they begged my mother and father to stay together.
Leslie's parents, after discussion, decided to keep me.
Aunt Lambert's requirements for me were simple: work hard to finish school, get home on time, and not get into trouble outside. I said yes.
After years of wandering, I finally found a home.
4.
I've often been told that they're not your family because you're not related to them.
But for me, that's my home. Home is the person you love, the person who will be with you, every day when you are with them, it is like a vacation, they care about your first appearance, they care about your first start, this is my family.
When I graduated from high school, I was only 1.88 meters tall, and in the high school league I only averaged 19 points and 8 rebounds per game. On the Scouting Report, my rating was two stars (five stars is full star, and most five stars can only barely find a substitute job in the NBA). That meant I couldn't get a college scholarship, I couldn't get into a basketball school, and I couldn't start a little bit better to prove myself.
In the end, I had to go to an obscure college, Taylor Junior College. Instead of hitting my confidence, it made me train harder and wait for my chance.
In my freshman year, I averaged 18.1 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game, the team's top scorer, and was nominated for the All-American College And University Team. It was also this year that I met another important person in my life– Marquette University's basketball assistant coach, Buzz Williams.
One night at two o'clock in the morning, Coach Buzz Williams called me and asked if I had accepted a scholarship from Marquette University. It was a chance to change my destiny, and it meant I needed to leave Texas and go to Wisconsin. Unwilling to leave the Leslie family, I experienced unprecedented struggles during this time.
In the end, with Aunt Lambert's encouragement, I chose to see the outside world.
In my sophomore year, I was a bench player at Marquette University, averaging 5.6 points and 4 rebounds per game.
In my junior year, I became the team's starter, averaging 14.7 points and 6.4 rebounds per game, including two kills against the University of Connecticut and St. John's.
In my senior year, my average per game improved to 15.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists, helping the team advance to the round of 16 and being nominated for the Best Team in the Big East Conference.
Coach Buzz patted me on the shoulder and signaled that it was time for me to go to a bigger stage.
So, on June 24, 2011, as an older rookie, I entered the NBA Draft and was selected by the Chicago Bulls with the 30th pick in the first round.
5.
When I came into the team, I was no longer at the heart of the team as I was at Marquette University.
Chicago has one darling — Derek Rose.
When I was struggling with how to get to the bigger stage in 2008, he was already the NBA's draft pick of the season.
While I was still worried in 2011 about whether I could get a little higher in the pick, he became the youngest regular season MVP in NBA history.
At that moment, it occurred to me that I had met Leslie for the first time—he was the star of high school, and I was the obscure grass.
Despite the huge gap, I did not choose to be low, but continued to persevere, be strong, stay tough, and face the nightly battles like a warrior in the Shura Field, which is my creed. Coincidentally, the head coach of our team is the league's most iron-blooded coach, Thibodeau, and his Rose, Noah, Boozer, and Gibson are all branded with the label of warrior, and we are trying to reawaken the memories of the Chicago Bulls 12 years ago.
With our efforts, the Chicago Bulls were iron-blooded masters that no one wanted to meet in those years.
2013 was my turning point when we met the defending champion Heat in the Eastern Conference semifinals without Rose. And I had to deal with Wade, the senior at Marquette University, and the man who was called undefeated.
Of the five games, I played 3 games for 48 minutes and 1 for 46 minutes. I took on the home defense LeBron James task and also cut 15.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.2 assists, which is the team's top scorer.
Despite the huge gap in strength that put us out 1-4. But since then, more and more people have begun to call me "Iron-Blooded Butler" and "Tough Guy Butler".
Since then, toughness has become my label in the NBA.
But only Leslie, Aunt Lambert, Coach Booz know that from the moment I was kicked out of the house at the age of 13, from the first time Leslie singled me out, from the first time Aunt Lambert took me in, I learned to always be tough.
6.
With Ross's injuries back and forth, I became Chicago's new leader.
Many people say I'm lucky, but I want to say that what I have is not something that comes from God.
That's what I've been soaking in the training gym for countless days and nights;
That's what I change back every day I want to rest and insist on standing up;
That's what Aunt Lambert promised back with her 8th child;
That's what I got back with effort and sweat that people don't see.
In the 2014-15 season, I was voted the most improved player.
In the 2015-16 season, I became an All-Star starter, was named to the All-Team 3 team, and was named to the Best Defensive Team 2 for three consecutive years.
In the 2016-17 season, I had a career-high 23.9 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.5 assists, 1.9 steals, and averaged more than 20 points per game for three consecutive seasons.
Just when I felt like everything was starting to get on track, I was suddenly told: I was being traded to Minnesota.
7.
The cold weather in Minnesota didn't cut my blood by half a cent.
What really chilled me was the Timberwolves' two proud sons, Wiggins and Downs.
Like Leslie and Rose, they were the focus of attention from birth, the darlings of the city, and they were gifted and could easily do what I could not do in my lifetime on the pitch. But they're different from Leslie and Rose — they're content with the status quo, they don't understand how untalented kids are getting to the same positions little by little, and their first year of rookies is my first year's salary is my four years combined (Downs rookie 5.7 million in the first year, Wiggins 5.51 million in the first year, Butler in four years and 5.24 million).
At an intra-team training match, I yelled at them, "I'm not the most talented player on the team." Who is the most talented person on the team? Towns. Who is the most beloved of God in the ranks? Wiggins. But who is the hardest person to play? It's fucking me! I worked very hard, very hard! Every day, every time I train, I give my all! ”
I am the one who obviously has ten thousand reasons to give up, but chooses one reason to persevere.
I led them back to the playoffs again after 16 years and I thought they were going to change, but I was wrong.
In the 2018-19 season, after playing only 10 games, I insisted on being traded because I knew that I was not a goal with them.
8.
On November 11, 2018, I came to Philadelphia, and this time I was working with two of the proud sons of heaven, Embiid and Simmons. Unlike Towns and Wiggins, Embiid and Simmons carry the winning genes, especially the big man Embiid, who has the same almost crazy will to win as I do.
Our collaboration together was short but enjoyable. We were once close to the division finals – I tied the deficit in the final moments of the semifinals, but Leonard's last provocative and fateful killer goal ended our dream of reaching the Eastern Conference Finals.
Offseason, I chose to leave.
The reason is the turbulent management of the 76ers. They don't focus on winning, they think about how to control the players. At the same time, the disagreement with coach Brown's philosophy is also one of the reasons why I do not renew my contract.
But the outside world's interpretation of this is: Jimmy Butler is bent on pursuing the status of the team boss, upsetting two teams in Minnesota and Philadelphia in a row, he is a locker room cancer, a nightmare for young people, and a head coach killer.
All right.
Whatever I say about me, I don't defend it.
In the offseason, I was approached by a phone call from Wade — we were teammates briefly in the '16-17 season and forged a deep friendship as a result. It is precisely because of our dissatisfaction with the training attitude of young players in Chicago that we have been abandoned by the team.
"I said to Pat Riley and Spollstra, you're the guy they're looking for, you're the next person to win games for the Heat."
Wade said to me.
9.
And so, I changed three teams in three years.
The Miami Heat are a brand new team.
They don't have players with explosive talent, but they also don't have mediocre, messy players. Pat Riley's iron-blooded culture has similarities with the culture of Thibodeau in the early years, and I quickly adapted to this style.
Here, Patreli says to me, I am at the heart of what I don't want to be.
From dragic, Adebayo, Hiero, Claude, Dunro, Nunn, Olyn, Leonard, Iguodala, Jones Jr., to lori, Tucker, Adebayo, Hiero, Dunro, Maurice, Strus, Martin, Vincent, Andromed, there is no superstar, no spotlighter, only blood and team, only tough and unyielding desire to win.
At the end of the first season, we only finished 5th.
No one is optimistic about us, there are defending champions Raptors in the East, Bucks who have won the regular season for two consecutive years, 76ers who are still in the double emperor, and Celtics led by double detectives.
In the first round against the Pacers, nobody thought we were going to win, but we swept 4-0.
In the semi-finals against the Bucks, they seemed to have booked a place in the finals in advance, but we sent them home 4-1.
The division finals against the Celtics, people would have liked to see a yellow-green battle in the finals, but we solved the battle in 6 games.
In the Finals against the Lakers, we fell behind 0-2, I tried my best, although in G3, my crazy 20 shots 14, 40 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists helped the team to pull the score to 1-2, but we really couldn't resist the play of the two monsters on the other side. So, again, I lost to James and watched him win the fourth title of his career.
In the second season, we only had a 72-day offseason before entering the new season.
Exhaustion, injuries, safety protocols throughout our season.
We stumbled and finished in 6th place. Facing the Bucks in the first round, we resisted stubbornly, and even had a chance to kill at one point, but were eventually swept 4-0 by the other side.
From the finals to the first round, it took only one season.
People are questioning our true prowess in reaching the Finals a year ago, but only we know that our story is far from over.
In the third season, we welcomed Kyle Lowry and PJ Tucker – players with tough blood in their bones. And with plenty of rest, we once again showed our toughness in the new season.
53 wins, 29 losses.
We got the first place in the East.
This time, we're ready.
Of course, there are always some episodes on the trip. A quarrel with Coach Spock, veteran captain Haslem, overshadowed our achievements. After that, we experienced a bitter four-game losing streak. I still remember Drummond giving a basket with one hand over "Yah" on the other.
That only stirs up my fighting spirit.
In the first round of the playoffs, we're going to face Trae Young and his Eagles. They had just eliminated the young knights and were in high morale. A year ago, they also entered the Eastern Finals.
G1, we win easily.
But at G2, we were met with stubborn resistance from the eagles' young men. So, once again, I stepped up — 15-of-25, 45 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and 0 turnovers — and the third man in team history, behind my senior and the man. What's more, what I've lost in the last two years, I want to take it back with my own hands.
Even if there are defending champion Bucks in the East, Celtics with double probing, Durant + Irving's Nets, Embiid + Harden + Maxi's 76ers, we will not back down.
This is Miami's tough line.
This is Miami's way of surviving.
It's also my way of survival.
10.
That's who I am.
I'm Jimmy Butler.
Whether you love me or hate me, laugh at me or hate me,
But in the end, you have to respect me.
If there is no talent, let hard work become my talent.
This belongs to the little man Jimmy Butler —
The way to survive.