“Miami Has Embraced Me”: Slinging BigFace Coffee With Jimmy Butler at the Miami Grand Prix

Photograph: Getty Images; Collage: Gabe Conte

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Miami in May is a great time for a race. It’s the day before the Miami Grand Prix, and the sun is bearing down unimpeded by any clouds. The humidity leaves a distinctive thickness in the air. The conditions are perfect for F1 drivers, who prefer warm temperatures for the way they help their tires grip the track.

The conditions are also perfect for Jimmy Butler. The Miami Heat star is cool, calm, and collected, hanging out in the paddock club of the Miami International Autodrome, where tomorrow his friend Lando Norris will take home the win. It’s approaching 11 a.m., but Butler is already sipping on his sixth steamy cappuccino of the day, taking swigs in between reciting the lyrics of Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music” to himself. “It can be 120 degrees and I still want my cappuccino,” he explains.

The coffee is his own: In the NBA’s pandemic bubble, Butler famously began brewing coffee in his hotel room and selling it to a captive bubble audience at an extortionate markup, calling it BigFace coffee. Now BigFace Brand is a full-fledged roaster and merch house, and its chief operating officer is a former Intelligentsia exec. Today, Butler is hanging out behind another brand extension: his BigFace coffee truck. He’s dressed in BigFace shorts, a crisp white tee, a backwards hat, and sunglasses.

Butler is fresh off his fifth season with the Heat, with whom he’s found the most success of his professional career. The fit has been seamless: He and the team both subscribe to a culture of hypercompetitiveness. Miami’s also been the birthplace of “Playoff Jimmy,” a seemingly supernatural phenomenon in which Butler takes his game into another stratosphere during the postseason. There were no heroics this year, though, as Butler missed the playoffs with a knee injury. And in the days between Miami’s elimination and the Grand Prix, the heat turned up on Butler, as pundits openly questioned his future with the team.

But he’s keeping cool despite it all—cooler, certainly, than me. As I walk over to greet him, having made the trek from the rideshare parking lot through the maze of walkways and bridges to the paddock, Butler looks at me, ever so slightly taken aback and asks, “Why are you sweating like that?”

If celebrities are in some essential way Not Like the Rest of Us, the Miami Grand Prix hammers it home. A partial list of attendees includes reigning Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, pop star Camila Cabello, the newest Captain America Anthony Mackie, and former president Donald Trump. Most of the A-listers keep to themselves. Security guards literally part crowds for Trump. Others, like Mackie and Cabello, shuttle quickly through the paddock club, maybe offering a quick wave to onlookers as they make their way to an even more secluded area.

And then there is Butler, who enjoys his coffee as people approach the truck every few minutes for a drink. When they realize that Jimmy Freakin’ Butler is hanging out behind it, which they almost all do, they come over for a selfie or a quick chat. Butler is patient and gracious, chopping it up with eager fans who have him as their lock screen wallpaper, and others who want to thank him for what he’s done for the Heat.

“People don’t get the opportunity to see myself or people they see as stars or celebrities or famous people,” Butler explains. He definitely has fun with his fame, like showing up to media day with an emo look—and then bringing back the persona for a Fall Out Boy music video. “As great as it is to be known, it can be a lot. But it’s great to be liked, to be loved, to be noticed. I think that’s what everybody always wants,” he says. “Attention is a motherfucker, I’m not gonna lie. But if it’s in a good way, it can be a great thing.”

Eventually, Butler makes his way over to the McLaren garage to hang out with Norris before his qualifying race later in the day. Norris is one of Butler’s many cross-sport friends, which include tennis phenom Carlos Alcaraz and soccer superstar Neymar Jr. Butler and Norris are rarely in the same city, but remain in touch throughout their respective seasons.

“That’s my man!” Butler says. “I talk to him all the time. He’s like a grown man even though he’s every bit of 24. He cares about people. He loves competition more than just F1, which is why we click a lot. I’m glad that I can call him a friend.”

As much as Butler respects Norris, though, he will not be getting back into a car with him. Five years ago, when Norris was only 19, he took Butler for a “hot lap” at the Canadian Grand Prix, hitting speeds that made Butler exclaim, “My stomach is finna fall out my ass.”

So could anything get Butler back into an F1 car? “Nothing,” he says. “Going fast is not for me. Like I don’t drive fast cars. If you look in my garage, you see big-body cars. I’m from the South, I like big cars. I drive under the speed limit.“

In the McLaren garage (Butler is careful to pronounce the team name the proper British way, Jimmy is goofing around. He dons an orange team polo and scribbles the name Lando on it himself. He tries on a set of giant earmuffs and a racing helmet. Then he heads out of the garage into the actual pit to take a seat in front of a set of intricate controls, where he claims he feels at home.

If there’s a quality of Butler that stands out in the sea of celebrities and the crazy rich that mill about the paddock, it’s a willingness to put himself firmly in the mix. Whether it’s playing tennis with Alcaraz or pretending to be a part of the McLaren team, Butler, more than most, really seems to enjoy the fruits of his celebrity.

“I think I’m human,” Butler says. “I try to be relatable to everybody. I am not afraid to make a mistake, I’m not afraid to laugh at myself, to humiliate myself at that. I just want to smile and make everybody else smile.”

If Playoff Jimmy is the persona Butler is reluctant to fully embrace, he wholeheartedly wraps his arms around Offseason Jimmy, the person who opens himself up to as many experiences as possible. This summer alone Butler hopes to catch J Balvin, Maluma, and Karol G in concert; attend the Copa América final in Miami; tour China and India; and possibly even make it to Slovenia for a farewell game for his former teammate Goran Dragic.

There’s also Coffee Jimmy, which seemingly started as an incredible commitment to a great bit, but has since become one of Butler’s biggest passions. Butler still pulls his own espresso shots every morning, though he also employs a personal barista, Rodney Mustelier, who as far as I know is the only person in the NBA with that job.

A few years ago, Butler told me it was a dream of his to step away from basketball for a few years and open his own coffee shop. While he’s clear that he’s not retiring soon, he is set to open his first brick-and-mortar BigFace location in Miami’s Design District this September.

“Dreams change each and every day.” Butler says. “Ten years ago, it wasn’t my dream to open a coffee brand or open a coffee shop. But it was once I got into coffee. The fact that me and my team are able to make my dream come true—I got really good people to work with and collab with. Their vision is just as big as mine, if not bigger.”

(Butler says he may work a few shifts as a barista at the BigFace shop, but to expect an upcharge if he makes your coffee. Especially if he knows you.)

A few hours pass and I’ve lost track of the total number of cappuccinos Butler has consumed. Despite walking around, mingling with fans, and refusing to consider an iced beverage, Jimmy still hasn’t broken a sweat. He’s unbothered, even as, in the wake of the Heat’s elimination from the playoffs, rumors swirl about Butler’s future in Miami. (A couple days later, Heat president Pat Riley would express frustration with Butler for trash-talking opponents despite not playing.)

Last August, Butler told me a Heat jersey would be the last one he wore, unless he decided to play in the NBB—Brazil’s top basketball league. (Butler has recently spent a lot of time in Brazil, in large part due to Neymar.) In the paddock I ask if that’s still his goal.

“I mean, yeah. In the NBA? For sure,” Butler says. “But then after that, I really do want to play for Flamengo. I tell everybody, I’m half-Brazilian.”

And then he adds, a little more seriously:

“I feel at home, man. I really care about the city, I really care about the people in this city. Miami has embraced me. They’ve wanted me to bring them something they haven’t done since LeBron, D-Wade and C-Bosh. And I want to do that. So as soon as I get this knee back right, I’m right back on they ass and everybody know it.”

Butler clearly laments not having been able to perform alongside his teammates over the last couple weeks and challenge the Heat’s rivals: “I feel like everybody got a pass this playoffs, man. We’re not going out like that.”

And with that Butler gets up and makes his way out of the paddock and into the South Florida sun, looking as relaxed as did a dozen cappuccinos ago.

Originally Appeared on GQ