Orlando (United States) (AFP)

Arriving in Miami preceded by a reputation as a locker room poison, Jimmy Butler has become in one year the appreciated and undisputed leader of the Heat in which his personality, his character and his work ethic seem finally understood, when it comes to playing. his first NBA final.

On Wednesday, the 31-year-old winger will discover the thrills of this ultimate meeting in a career of any professional basketball player.

He will face the Lakers of LeBron James whose force of habit, for his 10th final, would make more than one tremble.

But not Butler.

Because to fight, he learned to do it quite early in his life.

Abandoned by his father when he was a baby, his mother chased him away from her home at 13, in the suburbs of Houston.

"I don't like what you look like, go away," were his last words to his son, Butler told ESPN.

For years, he was homeless, sleeping on sofas, until one day he was taken in by the family of a high school friend, Jordan Leslie, who would later make a career in the NFL.

Considered the 8th child of this already large family, young Jimmy can focus on basketball.

He won a scholarship and joined the University of Marquette in Wisconsin.

- "No reason to be sorry" -

His story, Butler does not want to reduce it to the cliché of the sportsman triumphing over adversity.

"I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I hate it. There is no reason to be sorry. What happened to me made me who I am," he said to ESPN in 2011, just before being drafted in 30th position by Chicago.

He spent six seasons with the Bulls where he acquired All-Star status and ended up falling out with Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.

In 2017 he signed with Minnesota.

There too, relations are difficult, especially with Karl-Anthony Towns, and at all levels.

Interviewed after a game against Oklahoma City, the latter criticizes a country song ("Grave" by Thomas Rhett) that Butler just threw in the locker room and collects this: "I just ran after Russell Westbrook and took hits by Steven Adams , so I can listen to whatever fucking music I want. "

The following year, back in training after three weeks of absence, he played with the players of the third rotation and beat the holders he took care to provoke, particularly Towns and Andrew Wiggins "who have nothing in the stomach".

"Am I tough? Yes. I'm not the most talented on the team, it's + KAT +. The one with a gift from God is + Wiggs +. Me, I'm the one who plays the hardest. Everyone is a leader in their own way, that's how I show that I'm there for others ", he will justify, before being finally sent to Philadelphia in November, where there are only six months left. .

- "Already at home" -

The Heat then reaches out to him.

Its president, the legendary Pat Riley, may have been the coach of the Lakers during the "showtime" period in the 1980s, but you had to play hard with him to be able to play beautiful.

"During our first meal, with coach Erik Spoelstra and Pat, I already felt at home. Dwyane Wade told me about the value of work, of this club culture. These words that everyone uses but which here were very real. They told me "you are the guy we want." To be wanted is what everyone wants in life, not just in basketball. "

But since his very first session in the gym, which arrived the first at 3:30 in the morning, the wings of desire have not stopped growing behind his back.

In the Orlando bubble, it is a fulfilled leader who appears, loving nothing as long as seeing his partners take their responsibilities as much as he knows how to take his.

On September 14, his hated birthday, Butler offered a gourmet meal to his teammates, asking them to enjoy it ... in their room.

"I love you. Let's go get that ring."

© 2020 AFP