If you needed any further validation of the vibes Jimmy Butler has curated in the Bay Area over the last month, look no further than the waning moments of the first quarter in the Golden State Warriors’ recent matchup against the Knicks. With three seconds left in the frame, Butler received an inbounds pass from Gary Payton II, took three dribbles, and cashed in a 38-footer before the buzzer sounded, unleashing a roar in Chase Center usually reserved for his new teammate.
“Steph did it,” Butler quipped following the 97-94 win, referencing Curry’s buzzer-beater from a similar spot nine days before in Brooklyn, which Jimmy assisted. “So I was like, let me mimic my mans. Anytime I get to be like Steph, it’s a good thing.”
The early days of Butler’s tenure in the Bay have been prosperous. Golden State is 14-2 with its newest acquisition in the lineup. Before Monday’s loss to the Denver Nuggets, it had won 12 straight games with Jimmy and seven in a row overall. Butler brings a sense of calm to the controlled erraticism of the Warriors offense and elite intelligence to their defense, slotting into a supercharged version of the role Andre Iguodala played during the franchise’s dynastic days. All of a sudden, the Warriors are playing with zip and zeal. Since the All-Star break, they are third in the NBA in offense, tied for second in defense, and first in net rating, and they've climbed all the way into sixth place in the West.
“He's enhanced us big-time because we play fast, we play with a lot of movement,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr tells me. “But our kryptonite is our craziness. Sometimes we get out of control. He gets us under control, and we needed that.”
After games, Butler's locker—which includes various Alo creams, open beer bottles, and a Bryedo Cotton Poplin Bougie Parfumée scented candle—has become the life of the Warriors' party. His legendary playlists, featuring everything from Erykah Badu to Morgan Wallen, have become the soundtrack to Golden State's second-half surge.
Butler has also become fast friends with costars Draymond Green and Steph Curry, with the three of them celebrating Curry’s birthday by drinking wine into the wee hours of the morning. “Jimmy has that presence to where you feel like you need to fit in around him,” Green told reporters after a win over the Kings in February. “You don't have to make him fit in. And when a guy has that type of presence, this isn't a place where anyone tries to fight that.”
When Butler’s name first appeared in trade rumors this season, the Warriors front office was divided on whether to pursue him, sources say. Some members of the coaching staff were weary of introducing Butler’s brash personality—which led to tumultuous exits from Chicago, Minnesota, Philadelphia, and most recently, Miami—into the locker room. But after striking out on Paul George, Lauri Markkanen, and Kevin Durant, who declined Golden State's overtures in the days before the 2025 trade deadline, the Warriors decided to make a play for Butler's superstar talent. They dealt Andrew Wiggins, Dennis Schröder, Kyle Anderson, and a first-round pick for Butler one day before the trade deadline, and subsequently signed the 35-year-old to a two-year, $111 million extension.
“I've always thought he'd be a great fit here,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. tells me. “This guy was taking teams to the Finals and all that, so it's not even a conversation. As things unfolded this season with Miami, it felt like there was a little bit of a window to try and get something done, and fortunately we were able to.”
Thus far, Dunleavy’s intuition has been spot-on. Butler’s arrival has breathed new life into the Warriors’ contending aspirations. Six weeks ago, the team was staring down an “almost impossible situation,” barely hovering around .500, with Curry wondering whether he’d ever get another chance at the NBA mountaintop. Now, they look like potential dark-horse contenders, and Curry, now 37, looks like he’s found the fountain of youth. Steph’s production has rounded into vintage form since the trade deadline: 28 points per game on 48 percent from the floor and 41 percent from 3-point range.
“Winning is fun, so absolutely,” Curry says when asked if he’s felt rejuvenated by Butler’s arrival. “We’ve developed an identity over the last 15 games to either have those games where we’re firing on all cylinders on both ends of the floor or we can win ugly. A good team usually does that.”
Many NBA stars have learned the hard way that the grass isn't always greener on another team, or in another situation. In Butler's case, though, he makes sure it is. On the other side of the destabilizing trade demands and acrimonious exits, Butler is a basketball savant and a galvanizing leader. A motivated Jimmy is one of the most impactful players in basketball, and the Warriors are the latest team that stands to benefit from his presence.
Dunleavy first met Butler when he signed with the Bulls as a free agent in the summer of 2013, two years after the team had selected Butler with the 30th pick in the draft. One afternoon, following an early offseason workout, Dunleavy, Butler, and a few Bulls officials went to Carson’s, a steakhouse chain near the Bulls practice facility.
“We sat down, everybody ordered appetizers, entrees,” Dunleavy recalls. “And Jimmy's like, ‘I'll take a cheesecake.’
“Everybody looked at him like, ‘What? What are you doing?’ [Jimmy says] ‘Oh, no, no. I mean, it's all going the same place, but I go the other way. I go dessert and then entree, and then my appetizer.’ At that point, this is the first time I'd met him. I was like, ‘All right, this dude, this guy's a little different.’"
Butler is different. His insistence on marching to the beat of his own drum helped him transform from a defense-first wing into the Bulls’ leading scorer, earning a five-year, $95 million deal in 2015. It’s also the reason he clashed with Chicago’s coaching staff and front office, and one of the reasons he was traded to the Timberwolves in 2017. It’s a cycle that has played out multiple times throughout Butler’s NBA career.
The trade to Minnesota reunited Butler with his former coach, Tom Thibodeau, and set Butler up as a mentor to Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns on an up-and-coming Wolves team. Early on, his experience and competitive drive made Minnesota officials giddy about his influence on their young roster.
"He's just [already] gone through what KAT and [Wiggins] are going through now—learning the league, learning a lot about how to be great," Thibodeau said shortly after Butler’s arrival. "I think he's been a great example for those guys. He just plays the right way."
In Butler’s first season on the team, the Wolves jumped out to a 10-5 start and spent much of 2017-18 nipping at the heels of the Spurs, Harden’s Rockets, and the KD-era Warriors. “Jimmy’s had a great impact on winning. He’s changed our culture here,” Thibodeau said at the time. But eventually, Towns’s and Wiggins’s work ethic and perceived lack of desire began to weigh on Butler’s psyche, and during training camp in 2018 he demanded a trade—in the most dramatic way possible—out of Minnesota. Later that fall, the Wolves dealt him to Philadelphia.
Butler’s odyssey to the Sixers was welcomed by the Philly faithful, who bought into the idea of Butler as the final piece alongside Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. Much like in Minnesota, Butler made an immediate impression, averaging 18 points, 5.3 rebounds, and four assists in 55 games.
Early in his Sixers tenure, Butler raved that his experience in Philly was “night and day” compared to his time with the Wolves. “It’s so fun to win,” he said. “So much more fun to play with these guys.” He even embraced his role as a mentor to Embiid and Simmons, propelling the Sixers to a third-place finish in the East.
“I think Jimmy's been incredible,” said then-Sixers co-owner Michael Rubin about a month after the trade. “We thought this was a guy who's incredibly tough, and he's even tougher than we thought. The way he's been able to take two game-winning shots in his first few games just shows what he's made of. He's got a lot of experience. He's a real baller making a real difference. He's making a difference on the court and off the court, really in every aspect of the organization.”
Of course, as the season wore on, Butler repeatedly clashed with coach Brett Brown over his role in the offense. Ultimately, the Sixers were eliminated in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Toronto Raptors, after a fadeaway shot from Kawhi Leonard hit every part of the rim and broke Philly’s heart at the buzzer. Butler was eligible for an extension that offseason, but the Sixers instead decided to retain Tobias Harris over him, resulting in a sign-and-trade that sent Butler to Miami with a four-year, $142 million contract.
For five years, Butler and Miami were the perfect partnership between player, city, and team. Off the floor, Butler immersed himself in the community, simultaneously integrating into the working-class community of Little Havana, where he famously held court at the domino table, and brushing shoulders with Miami’s upper crust, including becoming fast friends with soccer star Neymar. In the locker room, he fit right in with the ethos of the team, defined by hard work, grit, and family.
“He was talking shit right away,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said a few weeks into Butler’s South Beach tenure. “Everybody got a taste of that competitiveness. That’s not fake. It’s him to his soul. He wants to win at everything: shooting games, free throw contests, any competition that happens during the course of practice. He’s obsessed about that. It fits in very well with our group.”
One Heat beat writer wrote in The Athletic, “In my 10 seasons of covering the Heat, the locker room has always been loose. … Butler has taken it to a different level. Several players have said they look forward to practice because of his laid-back presence.” Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo called him an “instant mood-changer,” with Dragic adding that Butler was “singing all the time.” Spoelstra praised his attention to detail and process, glowing about his impact on the quality of practice.
The dichotomy of Butler’s demeanor can be confusing to some who are just meeting him. He tends to ride teammates he believes in the most, often using every motivational tactic at his disposal and sometimes letting his veteran teammates sanitize the messaging for the greater good. In Miami, one of those voices was Jae Crowder, who has known Butler since their days at Marquette, when the two junior college transfers were trying to realize their improbable dreams of making it to the league.
“I just think I knew how Jimmy likes to lead,” Crowder tells me, “and sometimes it can be a bit demanding.”
Butler’s brashness occasionally left some of his younger teammates wondering where they stood. “Tyler [Herro] felt like Jimmy didn't like him as a rookie,” Crowder says. “But he was just demanding a lot because he knew the potential of Tyler Herro. So some days, Tyler may feel like he's on him too hard, and I will be the guy who just mediates that or just gives it to him in a softer way.”
It’s hard to argue with the results. In 2020, his first season in Miami, Butler led the 5-seed Heat to an improbable Finals run, elevating a less-talented squad to the brink of a title. As a 20-year-old in his first postseason, Herro averaged 16 points, five rebounds, and four assists through all four rounds.
Three years later, Butler helped the Heat to another Finals run, and was hoping to be rewarded with another contract to keep him in Miami for the rest of his career. Heat brass, however, had different ideas for his next contract, and yet another messy standoff ensued. By February, he was on the road to Golden State.
When he wants to be, Butler is one of the most charismatic, joyful, and talented players in the NBA, able to instill confidence in everyone around him. The dramatic endings at each of his previous stops overshadow the way he endears himself to teammates and fans, and elevates his teams to new heights. Every franchise that’s traded for him knew that his previous teams had gone up in flames, but each one can attest that the early success can make it all worth it.
“When you ask all his old teammates,” Crowder says, “I guarantee you ask those guys in the Miami locker room, they love playing alongside Jimmy. He demands a lot from the business aspect, but as a teammate, you want a guy like Jimmy on your team.”
Butler's early days in San Francisco have unfolded in a similar fashion. Following an early practice with the Warriors, he stayed late with second-year forward Gui Santos, playing one-on-one well and imparting some wisdom about the intricacies of post defense.
“He likes to use the right hand to direct the guy where he wanted him to go,” Santos told me last month, putting his hand on my hip to mimic Butler’s strategy. “So he can direct the guy, like, ‘I want to go that way, I put him like this; this way, I go more like this.’"
Butler is building relationships up and down the Warriors roster. After Buddy Hield called him a “connector” on both ends of the floor, Butler deadpanned, “He can’t even spell connector. Hey Buddy,” Butler said, calling over the ninth-year sharpshooter, “Spell ‘connector.’”
“You always get his roasting, but you never get my roasting,” Hield tells me two days later, chuckling. “He's always on the hot camera in front of everybody. If I'm on a hot camera, I can roast him, easily. It's always me that gets the short end of the stick.”
Behind the verbal spars is a growing bond between the two. Upon Butler’s arrival, Buddy reenacted the way Miami’s in-arena announcer would introduce Butler’s name before games. “Quit that shit,” Hield recalls Butler saying. “I'm just trying to get your joy back,” Hield retorted, in reference to one of Butler’s last comments in Miami.
On off days on the road between 7 and 8 p.m., Hield can expect a text from his newest teammate with an invitation to dinner. Last month, the pair visited Frank Fat’s in Sacramento, an acclaimed Chinese restaurant in the shadow of Golden 1 Center, and swapped stories, growing a fellowship that’s promising to be one of Butler’s tightest on the team.
“I'm his 'lil bro,” Hield admits, “He's been solid.”
The Butler effect isn’t limited to current players. Following his public roasting of Hield last week, Butler posted up at the domino table just outside the locker room with assistant coach Anthony Vereen, former Warrior ZaZa Pachulia, and video coordinator Lainn Wilson, where he held court well into the night, talking shit, building community, and bringing back the camaraderie that underlined Golden State’s championship success over the last decade.
Butler’s new teammates aren’t in denial about the explosive episodes of his past, but they aren’t worried about them either, citing the longstanding culture of the team. “[Kerr] has been around Michael Jordan, he been around fucking Dennis Rodman. He's seen the crazy of the crazy,” Hield tells me. “So if any coach can deal with that shit, it's Steve.”
Kerr points to a different reason why Butler’s fit in Golden State will last beyond the immediate future. “Ultimately, I believe that Steph Curry, what Steph represents, I just think Jimmy respects that and I can see the relationship between them and the mutual respect,” Kerr tells me.
“I just believe that it's going to work and it's one of the great benefits of Steph. People don't want to disappoint Steph.”
Warning signs appeared Monday night at Chase Center in the Warriors’ 114-105 loss to the shorthanded Nuggets, who were without MVP candidate Nikola Jokic and star guard Jamal Murray, both sidelined with injuries. Curry looked tired, committing seven turnovers and shooting just 6-for-21 as the Warriors missed an opportunity to gain a game in the race for the 6-seed. Following the contest, Kerr said he would weigh whether to rest Curry for Tuesday night’s matchup against the Bucks, providing a reminder of the realities of managing this aging core.
But the addition ofButler offers the Warriors arguably their best chance at contention since they won the title in 2022. Even if Butler’s here for a good time, and not a long time, everyone involved feels like it’ll be time well spent.
“We want a team that can compete with anyone, and I think that's the main thing,” Dunleavy tells me. “As long as Steph's playing at a high level, we feel like we owe it to him, we owe it to the fan base, we owe it to our organization, to put ourselves in that situation.”
From here, Butler and the Warriors will attempt to ride their hot hands through the stretch run and into the postseason, an environment in which both parties are more than comfortable. With the greatest shooter on earth and one of the greatest playoff performers of his generation, Golden State has solidified itself as a dangerous opponent. Beyond that, it's anyone’s guess what will happen. But for now, the two sides will enjoy the fresh start, live in the present, and worry about the future when it comes.
