Caron Butler - Tuff Juice: My Journey from the Streets to the NBA

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2016 by Caron Butler and Steve Springer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Butler, Caron, 1980

Tuff juice : my journey from the streets to the NBA / Caron Butler, with Steve Springer; foreword by Kobe Bryant.

pages cm

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORKT.p. verso.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4930-1142-1 (hardcopy)ISBN 978-1-4930-2382-0 (ebook) 1. Butler, Caron, 1980-2. Basketball playersUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

GV884.B88A3 2015

796.323092dc23

[B]

2015024558

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992.

This book is dedicated to my family

Thank You

By Kobe Bryant

When we got Caron Butler in a trade prior to the 20022003 season, Laker general manager Mitch Kupchak gave him my phone number and Caron called me right away.

Great to have you, I told him. Ready to go work?

He was ready. From the moment he stepped on the court at our El Segundo training site, he was totally focused, his competitiveness and nononsense attitude evident in everything he was asked to do.

Thats all I needed to see. Thats all I ever need to see from a teammate to appreciate him.

Caron and I bonded on day one and that bond remains as strong today as it ever was even though he now wears a different uniform.

Once I heard about Carons background, where he started from, the obstacles that had been in front of him, the danger all around him as he grew up, I marveled at how far he had come, how much he had accomplished.

If I were going into battle, if I were going into a game where everything was on the line, I would want him with me. Hes not afraid of the big moment, not afraid of an altercation, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him because of that.

He was only twenty-four when he joined us, but he had already been face to face with potential disaster and death more times than most of us will confront in a lifetime.

That alters ones perspective. A lot of players, when they deal with crisis situations on the court, believe they are experiencing the ultimate pressure imaginable. But when you go through real things in your life, when you are tested time and again with far more at stake than just a victory or a defeat, your view of what constitutes pressure changes. Thats something I learned from Caron. Hes dealt with real pressure. Hes dealt with life-altering situations. So when he steps on the court, nothing fazes him. To tell a teammate that hes not working hard, to challenge people at practice is nothing to Caron. Hes challenged people who were carrying weapons.

Even though we were on the same team for only one season, we became very close. We were usually together on the road, going out to dinner or just hanging out. He has a great sense of humor, can take it as well as give it. I could hang out with him all day, go out and have a beer, watch games, or just talk.

With Caron, it even went beyond that. I became close to his family and he became close to mine. He came to my daughters birthday parties.

When the Lakers were in Milwaukee for a game, he invited everybody on the team to dinner at his mothers house in Racine, twenty miles away. I went along with some of the other guys and we had a great time. Big cookout, lots of food, good music, and a chance to just hang out away from the normal road routine. That night, I felt like I was part of his family.

Its very rare for me to open up to somebody like that, but I just had a connection with him. Hes one of my favorite teammates.

When that happens, it makes the season better. It doesnt always happen. Its not something that I need to have happen, but there are certain players that I just automatically get along with. You gravitate to each other because you see eye to eye on things and you get along extremely well. And Caron was one of those players.

There arent many of them like that. Theres Caron, theres Pau, theres D. Fish, and Ronnie Turiaf. Thats four guys in a twenty-year career.

I still clearly remember the summer day in 2005 when the Lakers traded Caron. The day before, we had been working out together at our practice facility. We intended to follow that routine all summer and had big plans for the following season.

I was notified when the media was notified.

I was pissed to say the least. Pissed.

When we play against each other, I give him a big hug before the tipoff and have done so ever since the trade.

Caron has figured his life out thanks to his own perseverance and some great people who have served as mentors for him along the way.

I think its wonderful that he is sharing with the world his phenomenal journey and the life lessons he has learned along the way through this book. Hopefully kids will read it and see something in it for their own journey. No two journeys are the same, although the emotional challenges each person faces are very similar. But they can see how he handled his challenges and perhaps find courage and bravery in their own dark moments.

Im so proud of Caron. Its been a long time since he was a teammate, but it doesnt matter what uniform he wears. I view him like a brother and always will.

It was such a short walk, merely seconds long.

Yet for me, walking from my seat in The Theater at Madison Square Garden up a few steps and across the stage to the podium was the triumphant finish of the toughest journey of my young life, a journey many predicted would end in disaster, and perhaps even death.

The date was June 26, 2002. The occasion was the NBA Draft.

Because Cher had a concert in the Garden, the smaller theater venue was being used for the draft. It created a more intimate setting, allowing me and the other projected top picks to be surrounded by family and friends. I had about fifty people there myself, most of whom had driven from Racine, Wisconsin, my hometown.

Sitting with me at the draft table were my mother, Mattie Butler Claybrook, my grandmother, Margaret Butler Bolton, my then-fiancee, Andrea, my brother, Melvin, my agent, Raymond Brothers, and Jameel Ghuari, who ran the neighborhood rec center in Racine and got me started in organized basketball.

It was the first time my grandmother, born and raised in Columbus, Mississippi, had ever been to New York.

I had smiled when I heard her initial impression of The Big Apple.

People dont never go to sleep here, she said. Every time you look out the window, somebody moving somewhere. People got things to do all night long.

Once the draft began, that smile had disappeared from my face. I was nervous as I watched NBA commissioner David Stern return to the podium time and again to announce the selections.