JImmy Butler is perhaps the most fascinating character in American sports today. The Miami Heat guard is at the highest level of his profession, is a six-time All-Star and one of the NBA’s best defensive players. His ability to dominate in the biggest moments has earned him comparisons to fellow Chicago Bulls alumnus Michael Jordan. But what really sets Butler apart from his peers is the fact that his athletic success, including two NBA Finals appearances in the last four years, is perhaps the least interesting thing about him. He epitomizes “containing crowds,” and on a Friday morning in December, Jimmy Butler, sipping a cappuccino, doesn’t want to talk about basketball.
Butler wants to start by talking about coffee. He immediately beams when I bring up the three-year-old coffee company Bigface and as I hear him talk excitedly about the “origin trips” that have taken him to places like Colombia and Peru – “I wanted to learn what it really takes to make coffee . I’m talking from the ground up” – it’s easy to forget that the 34-year-old is one of the biggest names in professional basketball. He’s eager to make recommendations for his favorite coffee shops – he names Forin Cafe in Philadelphia, Mammoth Espresso in New Orleans and Hex Coffee in Charlotte among his favorites to visit – and shows genuine exuberance when talking about Bigface, which first thought in the NBA’s Disney World bubble during the coronavirus pandemic when Butler began charging his fellow players $20 a cup for the coffee he made in his hotel room.
Bigface will soon evolve from just a bean supplier – and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Employee – to open his first brick-and-mortar store in Butler’s Miami home this spring, and he speaks passionately about his vision for what the space could become. He says he wants there to be “something for everyone – all the different types of coffee, all the different ways coffee can be brewed.” But more importantly, he envisions it becoming a space for community, a place where people can come together. He imagines a space where he can be Jimmy Butler the person, and not Jimmy Butler the NBA player.
“I want to be able to talk about children – my children, your children. I want to be able to talk about, “Man, have you ever been here on vacation? Oh my god, I had the best steak of my life,’ you know what I mean?” he says. “I want to be able to talk about anything and everything over a cup of coffee with people I’ve never met before. They would probably be really good friends if we just sit down and figure out what we have in common outside of basketball.”
Of course, if you’re Jimmy Butler, your friends aren’t all random coffee shop goers. In recent years, Butler has built a friendship with one of his personal heroes, Brazilian football supernova Neymar. The two have bonded over more than just their shared athletic prowess, connecting over issues like fatherhood, a role Butler first took on a few years ago.
“I see him as a brother, you know what I mean?” says Butler. ‘And I’m going to support, he knows that. I fly everywhere to see my brother play. But whenever I get there, we’re always chatting, talking about life, face-timing each other’s kids. It’s a real family atmosphere around him, and around all the people I’m around. Butler clearly admires this in Neymar and speaks with reverence when describing the footballer’s relationship with his children. “He is an incredible father. He does so much for them, and he is always around, teaching them everything about life, about whatever they feel like doing. Man, it’s incredible to watch. And I learn from it.”
I ask him if it was a bit of a journey for a hero to become a confidant. “Yes, I’m still a huge fan. And yes, I still ask him for tips – (I’ll say) ‘I just want a thousandth of the talent and skills you have,’ he says. “But I’m telling you, it’s just laughing, messing around, competing with everything, just some really good people.” And Butler will certainly boldly give Neymar his athletic flowers as well. “He is (obviously) a great football player. He’s actually pretty good at basketball too. Now that I think about it, that little bastard is actually good at almost everything.”
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In what could reasonably be interpreted as Butler’s own personal quest to be “good at almost everything.” the avid country music fan — he’s from Tomball, Texas, a small town on the edge of the Houston metropolitan area — adds “musical artist” to his burgeoning resume. He’s been quietly working on his own country album for more than a year, he says, and while he’s already collected about 60 (!) songs for the project, he wants to have about 200 recorded from which he can eventually choose.
When he talks about his motivation for getting into music, he says he wants to ‘humble’ himself. “There’s so many people, and I’m one of them, that say, ‘Man, I can do that,’ and you really don’t know how hard it is to make a No. 1 song, how hard it is to to do. is to have all these songs on the back burner. And you have to choose the right one. And it’s fun, and I love it, but my goodness, it’s hard. It’s stressful – it’s completely different from basketball. I’m not saying basketball is easy either, but people can think they can just do this or that – it’s like, man, look. Humble yourself. It’s incredibly fun, I had a blast doing it. But I will tell you it is not easy.”
It’s unlikely he’ll sing on the album, though, as he sees himself more in a songwriter/producer role (“I’m like the DJ Khaled of this thing,” he deadpans). Butler sincerely admires Khaled’s skill as a curator, telling me, “He’s an insanely talented individual. To bring all these artists together and make sure they can keep their egos and say, ‘Yo, look, this is what we’re trying to get done here,'” he says. able to do It. I love DJ Khaled. ‘We Are the best,” as he would say.
Butler’s charisma is accompanied by a warmth that makes you wonder why he has developed a reputation as something of an anti-hero, although his fierce competitiveness on the field has undoubtedly contributed to that. But when I meet him, it becomes clear that his directness and no-nonsense attitude have more to do with giving himself, and by proxy everyone else, permission to exist authentically.
Perhaps there is no better example of this than Butler’s now infamous NBA media day trolls of the past two years. Media day essentially serves as photo day for the high school yearbook, which consists of NBA television graphics, and Butler decided to have some fun with the outing by appearing for his Photos from 2022-2023 with long dreadlocks. Then he came in last October full emo cosplay, which caused a flood of internet memes. “I grew up in a small town outside of Houston, Texas, so I’ve listened to all kinds of music my whole life,” Butler says when I ask him about his unlikely emo detour. He says that his children’s nanny is also a big emo fan – especially My Chemical Romance – and that’s why it’s often on the speakers in his house.
Butler agrees that his media day antics are essentially an example of showing people they can be themselves. “I like to be myself, I do that. And I love supporting other people, I do that too. I love to make people laugh, I love to make people laugh. I’m not afraid to make myself look stupid or make myself laugh,” he says. “One of my biggest things is to continually try to make people feel so comfortable that they will always be unapologetically themselves. And (the media day looks were) just one step closer to that. Butler also admits that he likes that people now expect the unexpected from him. “Nobody ever knows what’s going on in my life,” he says. “So it’s good to keep people guessing.”
“Keeping People Guessing” is a succinct summary of the brand Butler has cultivated. Maybe he has a No. 1 hit, maybe he finally adds that Larry O’Brien Trophy to his Olympic gold medal. Maybe he will continue his role as US Open ball boy. At this point, no new addition to his resume would be all that surprising, and for Jimmy Butler, that’s exactly the point.