Part Two: Lamar Butler
 | Part One: Seeking Cinderella Part Three: Jai Lewis • Part Four: Tony Skinn |
 Lamar Butler Team: BK Prostejov Location: Prostejov, Czech Republic Hometown: Fort Washington, Md. Ht./Wt.: 6-2/170 Position: Guard |
As soon as he arrived at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, Lamar Butler found himself stargazing.
Larry Bird? Elgin Baylor? Are you serious?
There they were, in the flesh, among the dozens of talent evaluators. During one of the scrimmages, Butler came out for a breather, took a seat at the end of the bench, looked to his right and did a double take.
It was the man whose silhouette serves as the NBA's logo, Hall of Famer Jerry West.
"I've got to shake your hand," Butler said, extending his own. "You're a legend."
West laughed, shook Butler's hand, and said, "Mr. S.I.,” – as some of Butler's friends called him since he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Butler began to wonder if things could get any better. They did.
Butler knew he wouldn't be among those taken in the NBA draft, that his only shot to make an NBA roster was as a free agent. That meant he needed to secure workouts with NBA teams by impressing them in Portsmouth.
When the camp ended, an adviser told Butler that five teams had expressed interest in bringing him in for a private workout.
Six weeks passed before Butler heard from just one team, the Washington Wizards. He arrived for an hour-long workout that included three other college seniors. When it was over, Butler said, Wizards coach Eddie Jordan pulled him aside.
"We want to send you to summer league," Butler recalled Jordan saying.
That meant he would be joining some of the players taken in the draft and other top young free agents in games watched by NBA scouts. He'd be a step closer to his dream and the big payoff.
Three days before the summer league started, the Wizards called back: They no longer had a spot for Butler. They'd decided to go in a different direction, and suddenly so did he.
His new agent began fielding offers from overseas teams. Two teams from Hungary called and offered $3,500 a month. The agent told him to hold out for no less than $7,000. A team from Poland offered $100,000 for the season, and Butler was ready to make Poland his home.
But the deal fell through. Weeks passed. Two more teams called and offered $3,500 a month. Stay patient, the agent told him, and finally BK Prostejov called, offered $8,000 a month and Butler signed the deal. Six months work would earn him $48,000, plus expenses – if he could make it through the season.
On his first trip to the grocery store in the Czech Republic, Butler couldn't make out the labels but had no trouble identifying things like a carton of milk. He just couldn't figure out why the milk was so strangely thick when he poured it over his cereal.
"You bought cat milk," a teammate informed him.
But that was the least of his concerns.
In Butler's second game, BK Prostejov played a team from Italy and Butler immediately recognized the point guard – Mateen Cleaves, who in 2000 led Michigan State to the national championship. The question was, would Cleaves recognize Butler?
"You didn't have to beat my Spartans," Cleaves said, referring to George Mason's victory in the first round of the 2006 tournament.
The two shared a laugh. Then Cleaves' team proceeded to blow out BK Prostejov, and Butler spent most of the game on the bench. Cleaves could see the frustration.
"Rookies don't get a lot of respect over here," Butler recalled Cleaves telling him. "Stick with it."
Languishing on the bench, Butler grew even more frustrated. When he flew home to Maryland for Christmas, he told his agent he wasn't going back. Fine, his agent said, but here was the deal: BK Prostejov refused to release Butler from his contract, so if Butler refused to go back, he'd have to give back all of the money he had made – $28,000.
Back to the Czech Republic he went.
In early March, he finally cracked the starting lineup, replacing a veteran and leading the team to two victories. Then his team lost two in a row. Though Butler retained the starting job, he wasn't sure where he stood. He said his goal was to make it through the season that ends in May, play as well as possible and collect the rest of his money.
His agent already was looking for a new team and Butler said he had no plans to return to BK Prostejov – nor any fantasies of going straight to the NBA.
