“The message to myself is to be pure and authentic,” he said of working with players such as Jovic, Orlando Robinson, Jamal Cain, Jamaree Bouyea and Heat first-round pick Jaime Jaquez Jr., “and I just try to help them to the best of my ability. So this summer-league assignment is all new to him, and he is somewhat new to the 14 he is charged to guide these next two-plus weeks. Some were 12 or 13 by the time he retired from the NBA, one, Heat 2022 first-round pick Nikola Jovic, wasn’t even born when Butler began his Heat playing career. “Yeah, that’s the dream of mine, just to find the confidence.”įor all the respect previously earned, Butler appreciates the neophytes on the Heat summer-league roster don’t necessarily know him as a former NBA champion with the Mavericks, a first-team All-Rookie selection with the Heat or the 2002 Big East player of the Year. “Oh, one thousand percent, one thousand percent,” he said of the goal of becoming an NBA head coach. “I’m still leaning on the shoulders of them, for their amazing guidance throughout this process.” he said of the Heat coaching staff, many of whom will be working at his side during summer league.Īll with that next step in mind, to be a head coach when the games count. And I’ve been in basketball school for the last three years as an assistant coach.”įrom Heat President Pat Riley to Spoelstra and fellow Heat assistants Quinn, Allen, Glass, Anthony Carter, and Octavio De La Grana, Butler has immersed himself in this second level of his career, after 14 seasons as a player that included stops with the Heat, Los Angeles Lakers, Washington Wizards, Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Detroit Pistons and Sacramento Kings. “I have to go to a basketball school where I learn the game inside out, and that’s the reason why I chose to join the Miami Heat organization. “I said I have to go to basketball school,” he said. It opened my mind and my thought process about going into this space of coaching,”Ī call followed to the Heat, who selected him out of UConn in the first round of the 2002 NBA draft. This is like four years ago, but it got my wheels turning. “And I had to go through that whole process. “As a father of girls, girls can be extremely rough,” he said, with satisfaction in his voice. Among Spoelstra staffers who previously coached the Heat during summer league have been current Miami assistants Malik Allen, Chris Quinn and Eric Glass.Īnd now Butler, who is coming off his third season as a Heat assistant.īutler, 43, pointed to coaching his daughter’s team as the first step to this next coaching step, to a degree having made the grade in grade school. Spoelstra typically cycles through his staff when it comes to the summer assignment, with Spoelstra viewing summer league as much for coaching development as player development. But, most importantly, it was just like the connection with me and my daughter.” “I coached her fifth-grade girls basketball team. “And I ended up doing it, my daughter Gia,” he said. Because you’re hard on me and you push me.’ ” “So I took it upon myself – and she made me take it upon myself – to say, ‘Dad, you’re going to coach me, so I can still do some of the things that I love.
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