After 16 Years, 9 Teams, Caron Butler Retires From The NBA

RACINE, WI — After 16 years, nine NBA teams and countless memories on and off the court, Racine, Wis. native Caron Butler, 37, is calling it a career.

"It was 16 years ago when I arrived in Miami to start my NBA career. Back then if you’d told me I was gonna play for nine different teams, for more than a decade and a half, I’d have a look on my face as indescribable as my mom’s on the plane that day," he said in an article published this week in The Players Tribune. "But here I am. It’s been a great ride and truly a blessing. But everything runs its course, even good things. Today, I’m retiring from the NBA."

Butler was a standout college player at the University of Connecticut between 2000-2002, leading the team in scoring and rebounding. During his sophomore season, he led the team to the Big East title. He helped lead the Huskies to the Elite Eight.

Butler was drafted by the Miami Heat with the 10th pick of the 2002 NBA draft by the Miami Heat.

Butler's mercurial path to NBA greatness nearly never happened, after a difficult childhood growing up in Racine. His first drug deal came at 11 years old. He had his first child when he was 14 years old, and was incarcerated when he was 16 years old after police found drugs and a pistol in his locker at school.
In 1998, when Butler was 17 years old, he was in the process of turning his young life around.

He was reading the Bible, got a job at the local Burger King and committed himself to leaving the streets. One day in January 1998, Racine Police conducted a drug raid in his house, and found crack cocaine in the garage. Butler denied knowing how it may have gotten there. Police made the decision to let him go, but only after warning him that if he ever got in trouble with drugs again, police would charge him with this incident as well.

They never needed to.

During his years as an NBA player, Butler remained a constant presence in his hometown. He's donated hundreds of coats to middle school students, has given away hundreds of bicycles to inner-city youth over the years, hosts a 3-on-3 summer basketball camp, and donated thousands of dollars to help renovate the fieldhouse and athletic facilities at Park High School.

He wrote a book, Tuff Juice: My Journey from the Streets to the NBA, that chronicled his troubled childhood, and how his life-changing journey led him to the NBA - and more.

On summer afternoons, you might even see Butler playing pickup basketball on the street on Racine's south side, working with youth basketball skills in the YMCA basketball court or in the stands watching his son play for his local high school team.

Two years after he was drafted by the Miami Heat, he was traded to the Lakers in a package of players that resulted in Shaquille O'Neal ending up in Miami.

In 2005 the Lakers sent him to the Washington Wizards where he played for five years. In 2010, the Wizards sent him to the Dallas Mavericks, where he won his first and only NBA championship.

Between 2011 and the end of his career, Butler played for the Los Angeles Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Detroit Pistons and Sacramento Kings.

He was a two-time NBA All-Star during the 2006 and 2007 seasons when he was with the Wizards.
Over his career, he has earned $83.6 million in salary, according to basketball-reference.com.

Photo: Milwaukee Bucks' Caron Butler (3) shoots a free throw against the Orlando Magic during the first half of an NBA basketball game in Orlando, Fla., Friday, Jan. 31, 2014.(AP Photo/John Raoux)