Here’s the Indianapolis Star on veteran Rasual Butler enjoying himself as a member of the Indiana Pacers. Butler plays just 5.8 minutes per game, but he’s a part of a winning team with legit championship aspirations.
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Butler has recaptured his NBA career just by staying ready.
During 2011-12, he was waived by the Toronto Raptors and remained without an NBA job for the entire next season. Butler had bounced around five teams in 10 years, thought of as just a spot-up shooter and possibly, one close advocate believes, considered a veteran who wasn’t worth the trouble.
Forget one foot, Butler had nine toes out of the very exclusive club that no basketball player ever wants to be escorted away from. But he remained humble, hungry and, most of all, ready. After a year spent remaking his body then accepting the lowly assignments of Development League standout and Summer League old head, Butler has returned to the NBA.
“You don’t get too many of those,” says Geo Aispuro, the basketball trainer who worked out with Butler for nearly a year so he could return to the NBA. “You get a lot of guys that drop out but you just never get those guys that drop out and get back into the league.”
Butler has this old soul about him. He speaks like a late-night DJ spinning jazz records and even breaks up the uncensored jocularity in the Pacers’ locker room whenever he feels the ribbing could go too far. Butler carries the sophistication of well-traveled diplomat and shares wisdom like the neighborhood lifer. But really, he’s just a man who’s seen his share of twists and turns and now feels grateful for this time of stability.