GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 28, 2026

Jimmy Butler

Media Conference

Q. How is everything come along? How positive do you feel? What stage are you at? Any timeline date?

JIMMY BUTLER: I feel great. Rehabbing every day. I'm to a point now where I get to start running a little bit.

I can dunk a basketball, in case anybody wants to know. Very excited about that. But it's still a process, but at least I get to play basketball a little bit now, and I know that all the work that I have been putting in, it's starting to get to basketball.

At first it was, like, you got to sit on the table and bend your knee and do all of that other stuff. Now I get to, like, do things on the basketball court, so it makes me extremely happy.

Q. What is this kind of like for you entering the season knowing you plan to be an important part of the team, but knowing that's still kind of a ways away? How would you explain that and maybe your plan to eventually impact this?

JIMMY BUTLER: I think it's difficult to me because I do love to play basketball, and I know that I will return still being able to play at a high level, but I want to hoop now. I wanted to hoop two months ago, three months ago. I want to go out there and compete with my guys, with Dray, be Robin again to Steph's Batman. I know I will be able to do that at an incredibly high level, but I just miss the game. I miss not being around my guys. So any time I get to be around them and laugh, joke, compete in ways that I can't compete, it's all a plus for me.

Q. It feels like you -- I would expect you to try to come back from this in, like, four months just doing the crazy stuff like that. Has it been hard to follow the timelines and be obedient to the process?

JIMMY BUTLER: Without a doubt, but that's just me being stubborn and wanting to come back and hoop. The best thing about this organization is they tell you, like, we're not doing that. You got to do it the right way and not skip steps, because they want me to come back and be at full strength and be the player that I was, that I am, and that I will be.

But whenever I'm ready to go, I promise you I'm coming back, and it's going to be -- I think it's going to be, like, real eye-popping for everybody how I'm still going to be nice. Probably nicer, honestly.

Q. I was wondering, what is your impression of Yaxel Lendeborg been so far, and what do you think about him?

JIMMY BUTLER: He's massive. He's a big human being and he shoots the ball so incredibly well. He's smart. He wants to learn, and he's a winning player.

I think whenever you bring in younger guys, they all just want to get busy and get to it right away scoring and doing all of these things, and he can do that at a high level, but all the questions that he asks, it's about how I can help to win, and that's what you get whenever you get a guy that's played in college a couple of years. They know what it takes to win, and they know it's not all about scoring, it's not all about this and that. I think that's what I was most impressed by is, like, what you want me to do? I'm going to be able to do it, and it's going to end in the result of winning.

Q. What's something you would like to impart on him or teach him?

JIMMY BUTLER: He asked me about some of the things that I look for and some of the things that I do while I'm out there playing the game, so I just want to be able to teach him the little things that I have known throughout my 15, going on 16 years in the league, and him taking a run with it and make it look way easier than I ever made it look.

Q. Steve talked a lot today. He's been talking for a while about kind of reimaging this offense and obviously cut down the turnovers and Steph and Draymond have been allowed to commit a lot of the turnovers and now they're not. You're a low-turnover guy, and maybe you haven't been part of all these discussions recently, but what is this offense going to look like, do you think, in a more efficient way? What does it have to do to get more efficient?

JIMMY BUTLER: I have been a part of these conversations. Yes, we do not want to turn the ball over, but I think, you know, some of the guys that we have on our team are very, very, very exciting. I know that we can cut back our turnovers, but the potential of this offense is great just because all the gravity that obviously Steph brings and then we got so many guys that can put the ball in the basket and can do so many things well when it come from BP, when it comes from Rook, when it comes from Will, who is still a rook technically until his first game.

When that ball starts zipping around and moving at the pace that it will, getting out in transition, we take care of the basketball, I think it will be fun and I know that we're going to win a lot of games with or without me being out there. I want to be out there, though, just so you know.

Q. Until you are able to be out there, what is your role with the team? What do you envision you're going to be able to do for these weeks in Hawaii in terms of building this team to where you think it can be?

JIMMY BUTLER: Probably just being very vocal and just being around the guys. Honestly, I think it's more about the smiling, even when it's not going the way that we would want it to go, it's still okay to have fun and to smile.

I'm coming back from an ACL. I'm smiling, I'm happy. I get to be around these guys, some of the greatest players of all time, phenomenal organization. It's never all bad. I'm not going to sit here and say it's all good either, but I think my main job is going to be like, hey, guys, I can't go out there and play with you individuals, but that doesn't mean that this is a bad day. You know, I still get to be around y'all. I still get to call myself an NBA player.

So as bad as things might seem, I promise you, it's definitely not that bad.

Q. I am from where Denis Bouanga is from. How close are you together? How did you meet him? What do you think of him as a player and as a person?

JIMMY BUTLER: Yeah, incredible person. Really good player as well, and we met a couple of years back. I'm just a massive football fan, soccer fan. I always tell everybody, my main goal in life besides being a great father and a great human being as a whole is I literally just want to score one goal. I don't care if it's on, like, 11 5-year-olds or if we're at the World Cup. But if I score a goal, you have to cancel the game. I will never stop celebrating, and I have yet to do it.

So when that time comes, yeah, I'm done being an NBA player.

Q. The French person in me has to ask you, how was Bordeaux, and why did you choose Bordeaux over Paris or the Cote d'Azur where usually NBA players go, and what did you enjoy there?

JIMMY BUTLER: I feel like everybody goes to Paris. Paris is incredible, but I'm a big wine guy. I have friends that I consider brothers to me now that also live in Bordeaux, and just the wine scene down there from Lynch Bages to Petrus to Cos d'Estournel, all of those places just showed me so much love and took care of my people like it was their own.

I'm just grateful. I'm grateful to be able to travel the world and drink incredible wines as I'm doing it.

Q. As you've talked about your rehab through the last couple of months when we've seen you, you said repeatedly you think you have a chance to come back better, stronger than you did. What are you seeing in the rehab that's making you believe that?

JIMMY BUTLER: I'm not one for numbers. I tell you all the threes, free-throws, all that stuff. I'm not one for numbers, but the numbers say I'm doing incredibly well, so now I'm a person for numbers. Only in the rehab part of things.

My numbers are staggering. They're off the charts. I'm ahead, so they say. So I just know that all the work that I've been doing, whether it be at home, in L.A., in Europe, in South America, wherever the case may be, I've been doing all the right things just the way everybody has asked me to do it. So I am confident that whenever I come back, I'll be more than ready, I'll be more than healthy, and I'll be more of a better player, all-around player than I was whenever I went down.

Q. Steph decided to recommit last week for a couple of years, took a little bit less than his max. How did that land with you?

JIMMY BUTLER: Great. At least he's here. I don't know all the numbers and all the stuff. I don't do that. I didn't even know that that was a thing either. I just saw that he signed an extension, and I'm so happy for him. I'm happy for the Bay Area, this organization.

I mean, you got one of the greatest players of all time that never wants to leave, rightfully so. So I'm just very excited that I get the opportunity to be his teammate again.

Q. Jimmy, the earrings, can you tell us about those?

JIMMY BUTLER: My earrings? The ones they told me to take out? They're just earrings. You know? I got some new earrings this summer, and I was, like, you know what, I'm just going -- oh, I got some new piercings when I was out with my ACL. I had a bunch of new ear piercings. I don't really do tattoos, but I like piercings. I won't get my nose pierced or thinking like that, but ears.

Q. What was the motivation? Was it just --

JIMMY BUTLER: Boredom. That's what happens. Then they're, like, you got to leave this piercing in for a year, and I'm, like, oh, what a coincidence, I'm out for a year. That's why I went and got some new piercings.

Q. Obviously you're one of a couple of guys playing on expiring deals at this point. I'm sure it might be tough to kind of rationalize that with just getting back from the injury, but is that -- the contract, is that front of mind?

JIMMY BUTLER: The contract?

Q. Yeah.

JIMMY BUTLER: No, no. I've made a couple of buckaroos in my years in the league. It ain't even about money. To me it's always going to be about winning.

When you win, that contract stuff takes care of itself. I just want to get back right doing what I love. I've never once worried about a contract. I haven't. I just go out there, and I play, and all of that stuff happens.

So as long as I get back to doing what I'm supposed to be doing, I'll be okay.

Q. You have been known for your work ethic throughout I'm guessing it started when you were young growing up. How has that served you during this process trying to get back to the court?

JIMMY BUTLER: It's the same. I want to be the best at everything. There's rehab, basketball. I know I'm the best at dominoes, but Spades, Mahjong, Hopscotch, Double Dutch, whatever the case may be, I put my all into this. For sure basketball. For sure this rehab that I have been doing that.

All the steps to get to this point have always been the same. It's never going to be easy. Never has been. Never want it to be, because then it's really not worth even having. So as difficult as it has been, as difficult as it will be, when I get back, it will be that much more greater.

Q. Is there a part of you that says just because I'm 37 people think I can't come back, I'm going to prove them wrong?

JIMMY BUTLER: No, I stopped listening to people and paying attention probably when I was about 27. I mean, everybody, they have their opinions anyways. They're entitled to do it. I love them. I just don't want to hear them, and I honestly could care less about them.

I know what I'm capable of as a basketball player, as a human being, as a dad, as a Robin, as a teammate, name it. I'll continue to be the best version of myself.

Q. In my opinion --

JIMMY BUTLER: Of course, you got one.

Q. I would love your opinion, actually, on the concept or the reality of Steph being one of these, like, all-time legends, and he's probably going to play his entire career with one team. Can you put into perspective what that means, how improbable and impressive that is to you?

JIMMY BUTLER: It's very hard to do, but it just shows how great he is. The great things that he's done in this community, obviously for this organization, and just how beloved he is by the world actually. I see it firsthand now being his teammate, but I just think the way he works, the way he goes about everything, the way he cares about everybody and wants to do right by everybody, and that's the reason he's going to play here his entire career.

If I was him, I would want to play here my entire career as well, and I'm happy I get to be his teammate for the latter part of this thing.

Q. Your game has been very unique kind of to the league for a long time. For you the confidence just in your rehab, in getting back, is there any part of you that thinks when you do get back on the court, maybe you alter the way you play?

JIMMY BUTLER: No, I'm not altering nothing. I don't care what nobody say. It goes back to this turnover thing. I always tell Steph and Dray, if I'm up there, throw the ball, because I really think I'm a wide receiver. One of my favorite athletes of all time is Chad Ocho Cinco, so I really feel like I'm always open.

I tell them, it's my job -- if you throw it to hit the rafters and I don't catch it, I promise you it's my fault because I always tell them to throw it. I'm still going to run in there and run into people, get fouled. I'll shoot, you know, 0.5 more threes, but I'm going to get back to being exactly who I am. That's what's gotten me to this point. I ain't changing.

Q. Do you have a mental target date lined up or no?

JIMMY BUTLER: I don't want to lie to you because he's going to remember every single word that I say. When it's time, it's time.

Robin out.