Professional Career
No team drafted Butler in 2004. Butler signed as a free agent with the Minnesota Timberwolves and was cut training camp. Butler played briefly with the New York Knicks for the 2004-05 NBA season. He scored ten points over three games, by successfully making all four of his field goals and both free throw attempts. Butler finished the 2004-2005 season with the Continental Basketball Association where over 40 games with the Great Lakes Storm he averaged 18.1 points (tenth in CBA), 10.7 rebounds (third) and 1.45 blocks (third) per game. He later was drafted in the 2005 AAPBL Draft. However the league folded soon thereafter.
When Larry Brown was hired as the New York Knicks' head coach, it was unclear what sort of role Butler would have. After the pre-season, Brown publicly commented on how happy he was with Butler, and considered him his fourth rookie (along with Channing Frye, Nate Robinson and David Lee). After a rocky start, Butler was soon praised as being the Knicks' best center, with Eddy Curry and Jerome James having disappointing starts to their Knick careers. For the 2005-06 NBA season Butler played in 55 games averaging 13.5 minutes, 5.3 points (54.4% field goal percentage) and 3.3 rebounds per game. He earned $641,748 with the Knicks.
In July 2006 Butler signed a three-year, US$7 million contract with the San Antonio Spurs. He was considered a long term project. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said on Oct 26, 2006 "...most of his playing time in the initial part of the season is going to be in practice, learning what a work ethic is day in and day out and what it takes to play at this level." Butler never played with the Spurs during the 2007 NBA Playoffs, but the Spurs won the 2007 NBA Finals.
On July 12, 2007 the Spurs traded Butler and the rights to Luis Scola to the Houston Rockets for Vasileios Spanoulis, a 2009 second-round draft pick and cash. He played on the Rockets 2007 summer league team, but was waived in the 2007-2008 preseason (October 2007).
Read more about this topic: Jackie Butler
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