Heat’s Caron Butler details priceless experience of being an assistant coach

Caron Butler enjoyed plenty of success as a former NBA star, but he didn’t imagine the fact that he was also able to salivate every single moment of being a coach today.

Butler, who handled the Miami Heat’s Summer League outing this year, admitted that making a comeback to the NBA as a mentor didn’t initially serve as a plan for him until Erik Spoelstra tapped him for an assistant coaching opportunity gig.

“I didn’t know that I was going to fall in love with the game and the teaching and all those things,” Butler told Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang. “But it’s something that I just can’t see myself not doing now because of the connection with the players and seeing them get it and the information that you instill in them. That feeling is priceless.”

Right after he concluded his fruitful 14-year career as a pro last 2016, Butler hitted the broadcasting seat of the game for ESPN starting in 2017. He went on to join as an analyst for TNT in 2018 and had stops in covering the local games of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Washington Wizards.

In 2020, Butler ultimately considered going back to the game he love by being on the sidelines and accepting Spoelstra’s offer to help him in managing the Heat squad as an assistant.

“He’s like, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about coaching?’” Butler recalled. “I was like, ‘I actually have.’ I mentor a lot of people, a lot of individuals come out to our house. D-Wade (Dwyane Wade), we’re all friends, we bounce ideas off each other business wise, strategizing and doing all those things.

“And over the course of the years, the amount of people that I’ve given information to, I was just like: ‘Man, I can be on the bench on a staff in a locker room doing all those things and really moving the needle in real time in their process.’ I’m just glad that I pivoted and came to the Heat organization.”

For Butler, being back to Miami serves as a full circle moment for him considering that he was chosen by the club for the 10th overall pick of the 2002 NBA Draft and spent the first two years as a Heat.

“It was a dream come true because this is the team that probably did the most intel on me during my draft process and everything, so they knew me best,” Butler said of breaking into coaching with the Heat. “They know who I am and they know what I’m all about. So it was an easy transition and they put me in a position where I could just flourish. That was huge for me.”