Warriors forward Jimmy Butler detailed his rehab from his January knee injury to reporters at Chase Center on Thursday.
Florence Shen/S.F. Chronicle
Warriors forward Jimmy Butler speaks to reporters during a news conference Thursday at Chase Center announcing a uniform jersey patch sponsorship with AI cloud provider Iren.
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
Jimmy Butler limped as he walked on stage as one of four panelists, including majority owner Joe Lacob, to speak at the Golden State Warriors’ new jersey patch announcement with AI company Iren.
Frustrated but optimistic five months after tearing his right ACL, Butler said it would be at least one and a half months until he was back running on the court.
“I’m in the thick of it,” Butler said on Thursday. “Glad to be up here in the Bay Area, not even going to stunt. This is my home away from home now. This rehab is tough, not even going to lie. You’re doing so much work knowing you have so much more work to do to get back to where you want to be. The process is a grind. It’s nothing new, but at the same time it’s very new.”
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Butler said his rehab has been tedious and his days since the season ended this spring have been filled with his pastimes. He’s fully immersed in the World Cup, playing dominoes with his friends and spending time with his kids. He thinks he could dunk a basketball — but only if he jumped and landed on his non-surgically repaired left leg.
“I can sit in a chair and beat (former NBA player) Adam Harrington at HORSE,” he said. “I can dribble. I can actually shoot a three sitting down in the chair and I get to watch my kids … it’s not all bad.
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“Not harder than I thought. Tedious, yes. Mentally frustrating, very much so. Definitely not harder than I thought. It’s just that life is different right now, there are things I used to be able to do that I can’t do right now.”
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Butler’s frustration served as a reminder of how everything changed in Warriors land during that January game against Miami when his knee buckled while collecting an overhead pass and he crumpled to a heap.
In the weeks leading up to that moment, it felt as if Butler would be just the right-hand man Stephen Curry needed to make another deep playoff run.
After Butler fell, all those fears about this veteran-heavy team became reality. Could two stars in their late-30s rule the league? With Curry on the court, anything was possible. But health did not permit it. Butler’s season-ending surgery paired with Curry’s two-month knee injury led to a play-in round exit.
Now the Warriors are building around the expectation that Butler will return midseason in 2026-27 and they’ll go at it again with their veteran core that also includes 36-year-old Draymond Green. Center Al Horford, 40, opted out of the last year of his previous contract to sign a two-year, $14 million deal with the Warriors on Thursday.
The Warriors will be in the market for another rotation player when free agency begins next week. Yaxel Lendeborg, their 11th overall pick, fits the mold of a player who can fill some of the gaps created by Butler and guard Moses Moody, who is recovering from a torn patellar tendon. The 23-year-old is a front-court connector and playmaker who was key to Michigan’s national championship run.
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Moments before Commissioner Adam Silver announced Lendeborg’s selection on Tuesday, ESPN cut to Golden State’s war room, where cameras caught a lively interaction between general manager Mike Dunleavy and Lacob.
“I was very fired up,” Lacob said when asked about it on the Iren panel. “It couldn’t have gone any better. We got the guy we were looking to get. He’s a game changer, and Jimmy is going to love playing with him. Good day in Warriors history.”
Historic sponsorship: The Warriors, Golden State Valkyries and Santa Cruz Warriors will be wearing a green Iren patch where the Rakuten one used to live on players’ right shoulder straps.
The new partnership between Golden State and Iren — an artificial intelligence cloud provider based in Australia — is worth a record-breaking $50 million. It’s a multiyear contract that is the richest sponsorship deal in North American sports, according to Sportico. The site also has the Warriors as the second most valuable sports franchise in the world at $11.33 billion.
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Golden State’s value and brand begins with Curry, and next season is built on a belief that, even as he’ll turn 39 in March, they can win whenever he’s on the court. Butler said that’s driving him most during the tedious days.
“We got Steph on our team,” Butler said on the panel. “I’m a firm believer that Steph is one of the greatest players to ever play this game because his talent is game changing alone. You legitimately always have a chance when Steph is on the court.”