Jimmy Butler has been no stranger to drama throughout the course of his 14-year NBA career, but the veteran forward appears to be happy with the Warriors since arriving via trade before the Feb. 6 deadline.
Golden State owner Joe Lacob doesn't anticipate that honeymoon stage ending any time soon, either, despite Butler's tendency to shake things up, for lack of a better term. The CEO told Tim Kawakami of The San Francisco Standard how his team decided to go through with a blockbuster trade with the Miami Heat for Butler, and it included plenty of research.
"I mean, I don't know. I don't know for sure, anything, but I feel pretty confident," Lacob told Kawakami on "The TK Show" when asked if he's sure Butler won't cause issues with the Warriors. "I've talked to him since, a little bit, directly, and [general manager] Mike [Dunleavy] certainly has, and [Butler] seems really happy. And sure, can these things change? I guess. Jimmy has a little bit of a reputation for that. But, these are always two-way streets, so there's always reasons for these things. ...
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"Let's just say we did our homework, and we feel very confident that in this situation, this team, these players, our GM, that I think Jimmy will remain very happy. And of course, we're all happy if we win, and right now we've been winning. So hopefully, if we're right about what we project here, this should be a very happy marriage."
Butler made three All-Star games, two All-Defensive teams and one All-NBA team with the Bulls, where he played with Dunleavy, after Chicago selected him No. 30 overall in the 2011 NBA Draft. But he was traded away despite his rise to stardom after clashing with the team's younger players and then-coach Fred Hoiberg.
The Bulls dealt Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves in June 2017, but his time there was brief as he again ran into locker-room issues -- including an infamous feud with Karl-Anthony Towns -- and requested a trade. Minnesota sent Butler to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he played for one season before signing with the Heat in 2019.
It appeared to be a match made in heaven for Butler in Miami -- until this season. After telling reporters he no longer believed he could be happy playing in Miami, the Heat on Jan. 3 suspended Butler for seven games for conduct detrimental to the team. He requested a trade, returned for one game, then was suspended two more times -- the last instance indefinitely after he walked out of a practice.
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Ahead of the NBA trade deadline, it was reported that Butler didn't want to play for the Warriors. But now that he's in Golden State and out of Miami, all sides appear more than content, and Lacob doesn't pay much mind to those rumors despite Butler's turbulent past.
"I think that there's a lot of agent speak out there," Lacob told Kawakami. "Let's just put it that way. And there's a variety of reasons for that. Pretty much if you hear it in the media or on TV or wherever, I wouldn't take everything at face value, is the bottom line. And as it turns out, Jimmy was more than happy to come to the Warriors, as you have now seen. And we can all speculate about all that, but I mean, yeah. Did I take it at some level? Did we understand, maybe consider that as an issue? Perhaps, but I don't think we took it as set in stone, and as it turned out, we were right."
Butler's impact on the Warriors has been undeniable, with Golden State jumping out to a 6-1 record since the six-time All-Star's arrival. And as Lacob said, as long as the Warriors keep winning, the good times are likely to keep rolling.