Filmed at Club ZZ in Miami
Jimmy Butler is everywhere these days.
There he is at the US Open, serving as honorary ball boy for an exhibition match between Carlos Alcaraz and Francis Tiafoe. There, he stars in Fall Out Boy’s new video for “So Much (For) Stardust,” sporting his now-legendary “Emo Jimmy” look. There, she stars in commercials for Hulu, Alo, State Farm, and Hotels.com. There, he samples products for BIGFACE, his fledgling coffee brand, and the first-ever Reserve Cup, which he helped bring to Miami. There he is in Kaseya Center, soaring for a bean and knocking down a triple.
And here she is at ZZ’s Club Miami, singing and dancing to Lloyd’s “You,” energizing the club’s opulent sports bar. After all, he’s had five cups of coffee and it’s 2:30pm (he drinks 10-12 cups a day, by the way). From Mario’s “Let Me Love You” to Bob Marley’s “Jamming” and Tee Grizzly’s “Loop Hole” featuring 21 Savage, a wide-ranging playlist is blasted through the handheld speaker. In between posing for photos, the Heat star snacks on sushi and sips on an Old Fashioned.
Welcome to Jimmy Butler’s SLAM cover shoot and welcome, more broadly, to his ever-expanding universe, where you’re invited; is encouraged– always be your true self. Pursue whatever passions you may have.
SLAM 249 featuring Jimmy Butler is now available. Shop here.
Butler is a man of many interests. coffee, wine, country music, tennis, padel, soccer (which he calls football), dominoes, spades, UN, travel. the list goes on. He is always ready somethingalways surrounded by family and friends. His house in Miami doesn’t even have a TV. Instead of binge-watching shows, Butler does things like chase tennis balls around Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens, New York, because it’s fun and he wanted to do it. He is currently working on his own country album; right now, it’s got 62 songs (!), and Butler, who played a similar role as DJ Khaled, is debating whether to run on one.
“He likes to get into things that you wouldn’t think he would enjoy,” Butler’s teammate Caleb Martin said. “He’s just super active, man, whether he’s doing something on the day off, hanging out with certain types of artists, playing dominoes or going to tennis matches. He’s definitely a guy full of surprises.”
Surprises like… appearing in the aforementioned Fall Out Boy video in an all-purple cowboy outfit.
“Anything that can rock anything on the Internet and continue to be myself and be happy and love my life and what I’m doing, I’m sad,” Butler says. The video was filmed during the All-Star break and was released less than two weeks later. And yes, it rocked the internet.
Butler maintains a difficult balance. he doesn’t take life too seriously, but he’s also extremely competitive. He makes jokes but often surprises people…was that really a joke?
“Don’t be fooled because you see me on TV or in a commercial or on a billboard, I’m doing the same things you’re doing,” he says, before adding with a grin. “I’m probably better. that than all of you… but I can’t help it.”
The truth (and the irony) is that Butler does a lot of extracurricular activities, like tennis and songwriting, to “humble” himself. He wants to experience firsthand the challenges of other professions. Of course, he is also sure that if he continues to work on something, he will excel in it. He has a burning desire to be the best at everything.
Win at everything he does.
Take shovels for example. The Heat love to play on the team plane during long road trips. “When I say he’s not losing, he’s not losing,” forward Jamal Cain said. “Haywood Highsmith and I beat him up once and he was kind of stupid after that. I kind of saw it in his face. He is very competitive. He doesn’t like to lose.”
Or take dominoes, which might be the game Jimmy is best at (including the one he’s famous for). “He’s a top-five, top-10 domino player in the world,” Butler coach Chris Brickley insisted. “I know this because he and (Colombian singer) J Balvin flew among the best domino players in the world, like world champions. And he beat them.”
“It’s a Jimmy thing,” Martin observes with a laugh. He and his twin brother Cody are the rare duo who actually beat Jimmy at dominoes. “And we haven’t played since,” Martin says. “On and off the court, he doesn’t like to lose. He sure suffocates me. Ever since we played him, he’s been saying to me and my brother. “You’re all the Funky brothers?” Cody and I play funky, so it’s holding him back.”
Butler brings that same competitive mentality to his brand, BIGFACE, which he is very dedicated to building. Together with the BIGFACE team, he visited Colombia and Ecuador to find the best coffee. He even tries to master latte art and how to make the perfect cappuccino.
“People can see it in the playground as well. his dedication to something and knowing everything there is to know about it translates from basketball to coffee,” says BIGFACE Chief Operating Officer Britt Berg. He and Butler write about coffee almost every day.
BIGFACE is set to open its first brick and mortar store in Miami later this year, an event Jimmy is looking forward to. “When I’m not training, when I’m not with my kids, when I’m not at the game, I can tell you where I’m going to be and it’s at this coffee shop meeting all my fans. and from coffee,” he says. “Because I love coffee, I want to bring the best coffee to Miami. I don’t think there’s a place like this around here yet, and I want the first BIGFACE cafe to be it, so I’ll be there. And we need that. Miami needs that … along with a championship.”
Ah, yes. Maybe we should talk a little about basketball. It’s mid-March when we shoot this cover, or as Butler says, “then.”
Let him elaborate. “It’s time for people to really think about the Miami Heat and playing against me. I know what I’m capable of. I know what my team is capable of. And no one wants to see us in a seven game series anyway. We know that.”
We do.
Miami finished eighth in the Eastern Conference at 46-36. But, then again, the Heat entered last year’s playoffs as the No. 8 seed before making an epic run to the Finals. In the 2019-2020 League bubble season, Miami reached the finals as the No. 5 seed.
“No one can tell you anything now,” says Jimmy. “To win a championship, you need to have three things. you have to play your best basketball at the right time, you have to be healthy and you have to be lucky. That’s exactly how it is. So no one can say now who will have those three things.”
Butler quietly had another stellar year, averaging 20.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game and shooting a career-high 41.4 percent. Don’t expect him to start more threes in the postseason, though. “I just don’t like shooting threes because I want to crash into you,” he says. “I want to hit someone. You can’t hit anyone if you shoot threes. I want to see who will drop first. I’ll keep running out there, I’ll hit you, and I’ll hit you again, and I’ll hit you again, and we’ll see who’s going to drop.
Sounds like something the fabulous and fearless “Playoff Jimmy” would say, doesn’t it? Only thing is, Butler continues to deny that Playoff Jimmy exists.
“It’s not the hundredth time,” he insists. “Playoffs are no Jimmy thing. Emo Jimmy, thing. Football Jimmy, thing. Tennis Jimmy, thing. Daddy Jimmy, thing. Zaddy Jimmy, thing. But Playoff Jimmy, not so much.”
Okay, fair enough. But it is worth noting. in four seasons, Butler led Miami to three Eastern Conference finals and two finals, averaging 24.7 points, 6.8 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.9 steals in 64 playoff games. He recorded two triple-doubles during the 2020 Finals, including only the third 40-point triple-double in Finals history. In Game 6 of the 2022 ECF, he had 47 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists and 4 steals to force a Game 7 over the Celtics (one of four 40+ point performances he had that postseason). He set a franchise playoff record with 56 points in Game 4 of last season’s first-round series against the top-ranked Bucks, then followed that up with 42 in Game 5 as his team pulled off one of its biggest upsets ever.
Butler will admit that things “pick up” this time of year. During the last few weeks of the regular season and the playoffs, he and Brickley start working out the night before each game. They study the defenses that are going to face Miami and try to replicate the situations that Butler will find himself in. What spots on the floor will be open? What shots will there be? What switches can occur? Butler’s basketball IQ is “probably the highest IQ of any player I’ve worked with,” Brickley said.
Martin, who is with the Heat through 2021, sees a “mental shift” in Jimmy as the playoffs approach. “I think he has the experience of going through this stage so many times, he knows how to time things with his body and then (there’s) the mental part of it as well, he’s just so mentally stable,” Martin explained. . “He’s very strategic. He knows when it’s time to step up. He knows which games probably hurt more than others or whatever. He thinks about everything he does.”
The added reps in the gym help, as does Butler’s very calculated approach. But if there’s one reason to believe that Playoff Jimmy is real, and that other teams should fear his imminent arrival, it’s this. Jimmy Butler is completely confident in who he is and what he is capable of. There is comfort in it, peace. Any sense of self-doubt and pressure is gone. He doesn’t care a bit what others think about him. what others predict he and his team will or won’t do.
This type of confidence is a way to extend to the people around him: friends, colleagues, teammates.
“When you have a leader like that, it gives you a sense of confidence in your abilities and what you’re doing,” Berg says.
“The first thing I noticed with Jimmy is he’s very comfortable in his own skin. He doesn’t care what people think of him,” Kane adds. “Seeing the way she carried herself and how confident and comfortable she was in her own skin only made me more comfortable being who I am.”
Kane recalls a game day when he and the rest of the Heat gathered to pray before entering the court, as was their ritual, and asked Jim to turn down the music he was playing. “You must all pray to me.” Butler replied. “He said it as a joke, but just the fact that it was the first thing on his mind, I was like, Wow, that’s Jimmy in a nutshellCain recalls with a smile.
It’s no coincidence that Butler describes Heath as “overconfident in a good way.” Much of that identity comes from him. Despite the ups and downs of the regular season, Butler has no doubt his team has what it takes to make another deep playoff run.
Why?
“We’re just going to go about things differently,” he says. “Our coaching staff cares and they’re constantly looking at how we can get everyone on our roster to stick to their strong suits and stay away from the weaknesses in their games. Care of property. they’re at every practice, they’re on the plane. We talk to each other. We really tease each other, which is a good thing. And, um…”
He pauses for a moment and smiles slyly.
“I’m in the team. So I take my chances every time.”
Portraits by Alex Subers
