February 20, 2019
A new Interview Magazine Q&A featuring Sixers wing Jimmy Butler cropped up on the internet this week. The interviewer? Mark Wahlberg, of all people.
The two are good friends, apparently, which is fun since Wahlberg once portrayed a Philadelphia athlete on screen but in reality roots for Boston sports teams.
The friendly Q&A touched on plenty, but to his credit Wahlberg started the interview with a bang. The discussion begins with all the talk about Butler's headstrong personality, and the people he clashes with.
Like, say, Tom Thibodeau, the former Wolves coach from whom Butler demanded a trade earlier this year.
From the interview:
WAHLBERG: What did you think about Coach Tom Thibodeau getting fired? [The Minnesota Timberwolves president and coach was let go in January.]
BUTLER: I think everybody knew it was coming. I hate to see it happen to my guy, though. He had a lot of power and a lot of pull. I’ve told everybody that one of the hardest things I ever had to do was tell him that I wanted to be traded. It took a lot out of me to sit down and tell him that.
WAHLBERG: Well, he brought you out there.
BUTLER: And then I had to turn around and be like, “It ain’t working. I gotta get up out of here.”
Well, that’s pretty black-and-white. (To his credit, Butler's been pretty straightforward about what happened in Minnesota since the trade.)
Butler later said he hasn’t paid much attention to the Wolves since they traded him (they’re currently three games under .500 and the 11-seed in the Western Conference), and he thinks the Sixers have a “really good chance” at winning the East.
“We’re still learning a lot, even though I got traded two months ago,” he said.
Butler also calls James Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo the two most exciting players in the league, and discusses his dreams of getting into film after he’s done playing basketball.
Along with the very fashionable photos of Butler, it's worth a read.
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