AUBURN HILLS -- Caron Butler can serve as conscience of the Detroit Pistons in team meetings, but moments like when he slung his 34-year-old frame to the floor to secure a steal Sunday against Sacramento, then kicked ahead for an Andre Drummond dunk to start a coup-de-grace fourth-quarter flurry, give his words heft.
The Pistons are 10-23, which doesn't seem like much without the qualifier that they were 5-23 on Christmas, and in two separate team meetings earlier this season, the Butler laid it out for his young teammates.
The first was at dinner after preseason. The second was in the locker room after a disastrous fourth-quarter home flop against Utah.
"I told them the knock on the team last year was not playing four quarters," Butler said after practice here Monday. "If you look at the scouting report, it says the team will play hard for 24 minutes, but strike them, and they'll fade away. And we don't want to regress in that moment. We want to stand up to that moment and get better and push through it."
It sounds great but the Pistons saw the downside of words without deeds when Chauncey Billups limped through his final NBA season last year.
Except Butler knew of what he spoke: On Jan. 22, 2014, he came off the bench with 30 points to lead the Milwaukee Bucks to one of their 15 wins last season, 104-101 over the same Pistons accused in scouting reports of offering partial-game performances.
And Butler has been a steady bench scoring threat backing up Kyle Singler at small forward. He remains a deft rebounder. He is not as fleet of foot as he once was, but still can get his hands on a lazy dribble, as Kings center DeMarcus Cousins learned when Butler thudded to the floor for the key steal in Sunday's win, the Pistons' fifth in a row.
"You can be a voice on the bench but you've still got to go out there and sacrifice your body and your time," Butler said. "They've got to see you in here doing the little things, and seeing you on the court, performing. Lord willing, I'll be able to continue doing this. Last night took a lot out of me though. That floor didn't give."
Butler already had made a couple of fourth-quarter jumpers before getting the steal in the open court, after his own miss, and clearing for Drummond's dunk to make it 99-88 en route to a 114-95 win.
Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy called Butler's steal "the play of the game, diving on the floor and ending up with a dunk at the other end -- that was the play."
Van Gundy signed Butler to a two-year, $9 million contract last summer for 3-point shooting and a veteran to complement one of the NBA's youngest rosters.
Van Gundy hinted throughout preseason that there would be growing pains this year, and relied heavily on Butler, a 13th-year veteran with his eighth team, to spread a coach-laced message through the locker room.
In turn, Van Gundy said Butler's consistency during the trying first eight weeks of the regular season provided locker-room underpinnings for the Pistons' about-face.
"When you've been at it that long, he's seen everything," Van Gundy said. "He's been at the lowest lows and the highest highs, and he's managed to stay even keel. He's learned those lessons and I think he can pass those on. And I think he's also a guy who's very optimistic and positive, and believed all the time that things would turn."
A few weeks ago, Butler's teammates voted him the Pistons' captain.
At that point, the four-game, five-day schedule examination the Pistons face beginning Tuesday at defending NBA champion San Antonio might have appeared overwhelming.
It still may prove so, but Butler, who said he came here because he wanted to help a young team grow late in his career, clearly is gratified that the Pistons have pulled their season back from the brink of irrelevance.
"It's real rewarding because, I mean, they don't owe me nothing," he said. "But I always told the guys you owe it to yourself to go out there and represent the name on the back of the jersey, as well as the front. Be a professional on and off the court, do your job, stay the course.
"I appreciate it more because everybody bought in, you know what I'm saying? They believed in what Coach Van Gundy was saying, they believed in my methods and my leadership in the locker room, and to see everybody playing so well because of it -- the energy is totally different and I'm just excited about it."
Butler said he tried to serve as "the mediator," or something of a counterbalance to bad-cop Van Gundy.
"I tried to say the little things, and hopefully they don't fall on deaf ears," he said. "Obviously, it didn't. Guys just stayed the course and just bought in. That's the key. They're starting to believe now, and they know that this hard work is really paying off."
The Pistons tonight see a wounded champion in the Spurs (21-14), who have played recently without Tony Parker (hamstring), who could return tonight, and 2014 NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard (hand), who is out for several weeks. The Spurs have lost nine of their last 15 games.
"Obviously, champs, we're going in there, and that's not no easy task," Butler said. "They play a certain style and they try to get you to play their style. We're going to have to move the ball, make shots, be relentless, stay the course, fight through adversity."
Article by David Mayo from MLive