Netflix’s new basketball reality series ‘Starting 5’ (subscription required) tracked players like Jimmy Butler, LeBron James, Anthony Edwards, Domantas Sabonis, and Jayson Tatum in a documentary-style mini-series last season. The show depicts Butler dealing with his father’s untimely passing after the 2024 All-Star break, causing Butler immense grief he had to deal with in the middle of the season.
“When you lose somebody who’s that dear to you and that’s taught you so much, that has seen you grow from a kid to a young adult to a star to the man that I am today as a father and then all of a sudden he’s not there anymore, I didn’t know what to do. No amount of money in the world could bring him back. Basketball, no matter how much I played it, it couldn’t fix that.”
“Right after All-Star break, they really need me to be a lot better. I want to always answer to that call. But I couldn’t care less about basketball right now. I don’t care. Yeah, I work out. Yes, I train because I love to do it and it takes my mind off of my dad. From that moment, I’m lost in the game, in the art, in getting better. But as soon as that ball is done bouncing and I’m back home, it will all settle in.”
“It sucks to hurt. It sucks to lose people. They expect you to be superhuman, which is a thing in itself. But I’m very much human and I’m hurting right now as we speak and I hate talking about it. I hate it. But here we are.”
Butler described how he ended up finding out his father had passed away.
“I got a text from my agent asking me if I have landed yet. Nobody ever texts me when I’m in the air to ask if I’ve landed yet. So that’s when I knew that my dad had passed, my dad had passed on Feb. 8 at 1:04 a.m. or something like that. So it was crazy that triple-double was the last game that my dad was alive.”
“I don’t think you really understand until you understand that athletes are human, too. That we hurt and we cry and we grieve and we’re angry. Something is going on in our life and you can’t see it just like we don’t understand what’s going on in your life either. But that doesn’t make us a bad person for being human.”
Butler’s last game with his father present came on February 7, with Butler indicating to him notching a triple-double in that game. It was against the San Antonio Spurs as Butler finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists to lead the Heat to a 116-104 home win.
The Miami Heat forward hasn’t notched another triple-double since, as Butler’s form cratered towards the end of the season before he got hurt in the Play-In Tournament and would watch his squad lose 4-1 in the first round to the Boston Celtics.
Butler is fighting for his future with the Heat this season, as Butler’s poor performances and unavailability last season have prompted the Heat to wait and see if Butler can earn another max contract extension.
He’s expected to enter free agency regardless, so the Heat will likely run the risk of possibly being outbid by someone else, similar to what just happened with Paul George and the Los Angeles Clippers.
Butler averaged 20.8 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 5.0 assists last season.
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