The Los Angeles Lakers acquired Slovenian NBA superstar Luka Dončić to team with icon LeBron James last month, the biggest story in the NBA. Still, Jimmy Butler joining Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors has been similarly impactful, as the team has won 10 of the first 11 games with him in the lineup. Curry, Butler, and Draymond Green discussed the trade while in New York to face the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets.
“Y’all know who [Jimmy Butler] is and what he’s been able to do in this league, and there’s a learning curve, a learning process, bringing in a guy like him,” Curry said after a win over the Knicks. “But we’re talking, we’re figuring it … daily. I know we’re all challenged because we understand the sense of urgency of where we are in the season. But he’s a superstar and (has lifted) teams, and he’s doing it with us, and we’re trying to all do our part around him.”
Warriors enjoying ‘a good balance and a good flow’
Curry again spoke about Butler’s impact after a 121-119 win over the Nets, a game in which Curry’s 38-foot heave at the halftime buzzer helped Golden State overcome a 22-point deficit. The only game the Warriors have lost since acquiring him in a five-player trade with the Miami Heat on Feb. 6 was a game in Philadelphia that Butler missed because of back spasms.
“Jimmy obviously helps a lot, and it’s led to winning because we have a good balance and a good flow, and his impact on the game is pretty obvious,” he said.
Butler then talked about Curry.
“(Curry) draws so much attention, everybody in the world, let alone this league, knows and this team, so it’s all about using it to our advantage,” Butler said of playing with the two-time NBA MVP. “When he’s on the perimeter, somebody, anybody, everybody, you got to go to the paint because that’s going to be the most wide-open thing always going to overact to him when he has the ball, even when he doesn’t have the ball, so we got to start learning what to do if he’s not getting the ball.”
Draymond Green also chimed in on the instant chemistry Butler helped to create.
“He’s been great on and off the floor, but aside from the chemistry is the confidence: the confidence that he is infusing into this group has been huge,” Green said. “I was saying on my walk over that we would have lost that game a month ago. But the confidence that he’s brought to this team is changing everything for us.”
Green also explained how Butler has upgraded the team’s chemistry.
‘Definitely what we were missing’
“(Jimmy Butler) is definitely what we were missing,” Green said. “I’m confident. But you need collective confidence in order to win in this league. You can have one guy, I can be confident, Steph can be confident, but if you’re not collectively confident as a group, you can’t win, so I think what he’s brought is not necessarily that he’s made me more confident or Steph more confident, but he’s made this group more confident. You can’t win in this league without that. You can’t perform well in this league without that.”
