Eight months after tearing his ACL in Golden State’s Jan. 19 game against the Miami Heat, Jimmy Butler is sounding as confident as ever about his comeback.
At Warriors media day on Monday, Sept. 28, Butler made it clear he expects to be back on the floor this season. He also said people should be ready for a strong level of play once he’s back in Steve Kerr’s rotation.
“I promise you I’m coming back,” Butler said. “I think it’s going to be, like, real eye-popping for everybody how I’m still going to be nice.
Probably nicer, honestly. My numbers are staggering.
They’re off the charts. I’m ahead, so they say.
So I just know that all the work that I’ve been doing, whether it be at home, in L.A., in Europe, in South America, wherever the case may be, I’ve been doing all the right things just the way everybody has asked me to do it."
Butler doubled down on that message, saying he believes he’ll return as a better player than the one who got hurt.
“So I am confident that whenever I come back, I’ll be more than ready, I’ll be more than healthy, and I’ll be a better player, an all-around player, than I was whenever I went down.”
Butler, 37, could end up being a major swing piece for the Warriors next season. If he gets back to something close to a borderline All-Star level and fills a need in the forward group, Golden State stands to gain plenty from his return.
For now, though, Kerr and his staff have to get through his absence without him, which means leaning on younger players on the roster. The encouraging part for Golden State is that several of those younger options already look prepared to take on more.
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