From homeless teen, to the NBA’s Most Improved Player, to max contract guy, Jimmy Butler‘s life and career trajectories are the stuff of fairytales. Now he can add hobnobbing with Hollywood elite to the list of accomplishments he never could’ve imagined for himself as an “aw, shucks” youth in a tiny Texas town.
According to a recent profile, Butler struck up a friendship with Oscar-nominated actor Mark Wahlberg a couple of years ago, and that relationship has somewhat surprisingly been a real source of inspiration for the Chicago Bulls swingman. Via Bryan Smith of Chicago Mag:
“I love him to death,” Butler says. “He’s always asking about me as a person. Forget Jimmy Butler as a basketball player. ‘Hey, you doing OK? Is there anything I can help you with?’ I try to pick his brain a little bit.” One thing that impressed Butler about Wahlberg, in addition to the actor’s commitment to his wife and kids, was his work ethic: “I just saw the way he got after it, the way he would train. I was like, You know what? That’s probably something a lot of people aren’t doing. Which is why I started waking up at 5 a.m. to start working out. He was doing it.”
Says Wahlberg about his bromance with Butler: “We just kind of clicked. For me, it’s exciting to see a young 20-something-year-old kid, who’s got the world basically in the palm of his hand, controlling his own destiny. Just to see the excitement in his eyes, but also a good, strong head on his shoulders. There are a lot of people who will try to come around and get on his good side to get something from him. And he knows that I don’t need anything from him, that all I’m trying to do is point him in the right direction.”
If Wahlberg strikes you as an unlikely mentor to a burgeoning NBA star, then you’re not alone. But if he really did inspire Butler in some small way to put in the type of work ethic that resulted in his stratospheric ascension the past two seasons, then that’s pretty remarkable. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the lives of sports stars and silver screen celebrities have intersected, but it’s all the more astonishing considering Butler’s rocky upbringing. And for Butler, it’s just another way of never looking back on his troubled past.
(Via Chicago Mag)
