Jimmy Butler was in the city where LeBron James won his last championship, lamenting the snow outside and celebrating the fact that no longer playing in a cold-weather city meant he was greeted by sunny skies and 80-degree temperatures when he got home from most road trips. Butler sat down last November, in the corner of the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in Cleveland, to discuss his made-in-hoops-heaven free agent honeymoon with the Miami Heat when a question was asked that feels quite appropriate more than 10 months later.
Did seeing LeBron join the Los Angeles Lakers by himself and have a rough season in which he got hurt and missed the playoffs give him any pause about going it alone, without a superstar teammate, in Miami?
“No. Because we’re two completely different players, two different people,” Butler told The Athletic of James. “He handles stuff the way he handles it. I handle stuff the way I handle it. I respect him a lot, but…
