Jimmy Butler opened up about his time as a Philadelphia 76er on the JJ Redick Podcast this week. Ultimately, Butler said he heard the Sixers were worried about "trying to control" him and Butler wasn't OK with that.
"I knew I wasn't going back—before I say this sentence, do you think I'm that hard to work with?" Butler asked Redick. "Somebody told me, a main reason I didn't go back was because somebody asked, 'Can you control him?'
"The fact that you tryin' to control a grown man? Nah I'm cool. Because I don't do nothing that's just drastically f--- stupidly crazy. If that's what y'all worried about, good luck to y'all."
Butler admitted his relationship with head coach Brett Brown wasn't great, just a professional one, and Butler didn't understand why he had Ben Simmons run the offense the entire season and then switched it up in the semi-finals series against the Raptors.
"Sure was not," Butler replied.
"It was professional," Butler continued. "But to this day, I don't think that that was fair to switch over like that. Even thought we played great basketball like that, I don't think it was fair because the entire year Ben had the ball. So you mean to tell that in one playoff series, you just switch it up like that? I would be, like he was, I would feel a type a way. I would think that's it f---ed up to play one way the entire year and then be like you know what? Boom! This is how we're gonna do it. I would tell Brett, 'I think we should mix in me handling the ball a little bit.'"
Redick and Butler also talked about the infamous meeting where Butler reportedly confronted Brown.
The first meeting was before the Tobias Harris trade with just Brown, Butler, Redick, Simmons, and Joel Embiid.
"We're all sitting in there and nothing got accomplished at all," Butler said. "'JJ, why would I ever go back in there again?' Nothing is getting accomplished.' Nobody is saying nothing to anybody and we're just sitting in there watching film and you can literally here the thing clicking. I may have been two, three weeks there tops.
"I'm sitting back and I'm watching. I ain't saying nothing, because don't nobody know me like that.
"So now, we fast forward to however many weeks over there and we in Portland and then that happens during the film session, because once again, wasn't nobody saying nothing. So who was the individual that finally decided to say something?"
Redick asked Butler what went through his head when the Kawhi Leonard shot went in.
"A lot," said Butler. "A lot was going through my head. I already knew how I believe it would have worked if that shot wouldn't have went in and we went to overtime and we win. I'm in awe a little bit and then after everything settles down the first thing that comes to my mind, legit is, will I be back here? Will I have the opportunity to do this again with these guys? And to tell you the truth, I had a feeling it would be a no."
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