5/18/2023 0 Comments Jimmy buckets![]() By the end of the season-a year in which he led the Bulls to the second round of the playoffs-he was voted the NBA’s Most Improved Player, the first Bull to ever win that award. ![]() He hauled in rebounds, buried game-winning shots, and ran the floor for 40 minutes a night-more than any other guy on the squad-all while playing with a passion and energy that made Bulls fans embrace “Jimmy Buckets,” as he’s come to be known because of his hot shooting streaks. Then last year-a year in which Rose, the former league MVP with the star-crossed knees, missed another 31 games-Butler stepped up to the tune of 20 points a game, nearly double his career average, while playing lockdown defense, night after night, on the other teams’ best players. Headed into last season, his fourth with the Bulls, Butler was a $2-million-a-year, not-exactly-awe-inspiring role player good for a dozen or so points a game and solid D. “For years, as we’ve been trying to build the team, it’s always been, ‘You need a complement to Derrick Rose,’ ” says Bulls VP John Paxson. or at least the shared face, with the often-hobbled Derrick Rose. Then, sly as a Cheshire, he grins his million-dollar grin-his $95 million grin, to be exact, given the five-year contract he signed in July, a deal that clearly signaled his arrival as the new face of the franchise. “We have flat-out wars.” A too-casual walk past that Eden outside will almost certainly bring a shove into the pool-“and believe me,” says Butler, “nobody cares if you have your cell phone.” “We go to Wal-Mart and buy, like, $1,500 worth of Nerf guns,” Butler explains. And at any moment, spongy hellfire can rain down on your head. It’s what makes us laugh.”įor one thing, they’ve set up a makeshift indoor putting green that consists of a red plastic cup duct-taped to the carpet. “All the things we did as kids we do now. “We have fun in our own way,” Butler tells me. The digs may be extravagant, but Butler will be damned if he and his roomies are going to tiptoe around with cups of tea and raised pinkies. (Butler: “Two hours? And that’s all you got?” Jermaine: “You hear of traffic?”)Īnd so it goes. “What? I just went.”Ī five-minute zingfest ensues about who’s the most efficient supermarket navigator. “Don’t no one buy no groceries around here?” Butler yells over his shoulder in mock irritation. Soon Ifeanyi wanders in, too, ostensibly to forage. Just then, Jermaine floats past into the kitchen, a 30-foot expanse of quartz and stainless steel. “Nice place,” you offer, the only icebreaker that comes to mind as you follow him into the living room.īutler laughs and nods. The 26-year-old Chicago Bulls star rented it in the off-season for himself and his two longtime pals Jermaine and Ifeanyi, whom he introduces as “my brothers.” He ambles inside, dwarfed, big as he is, at 6-foot-7, by the massive house, situated in a tony enclave outside San Diego. Soon enough, Jimmy Butler is up, yawning loudly and stretching. A nugget-sized diamond winks from his left ear. His familiar Kid ’n Play meets Bart Simpson fade cuts a corrugated silhouette against the sunlight pouring down. You’ll also find, in the stillness of a lazy September afternoon, a figure lying on a chaise by that pool, dozing in the Pacific breezes. There you will find the nine-bedroom, 14-bath, 13,000-square-foot manor proper, with its vaulted 30-foot ceilings and an infinity pool set against a Shangri-la of flora. A last climb (enlivened, occasionally, by the odd rattlesnake slithering across the road) brings you to a 40-acre property that has its own guesthouse, horse barn, corral, and baseball diamond. Next you grind up past a bewildering succession of palm-treed cul-de-sacs, each jeweled with sumptuous homes and luxury automobiles-Porsches and Jags and Shelbys that loll in the desert sun like sleeping cats. You must first pass a clipboard-wielding sentry, who fixes you with the fish eye even if your name appears on his list. no, the estate rises on a promontory like a crown. Above the rippling hills, past where a pair of Southern California valleys join to begin their golden ascent, the house.
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