Even in the NBA — where many players have overcome intense hardship to become millionaire professional athletes — Caron Butler's story stands apart.
He became a coke dealer at 11. He became a father at 14. He was arrested numerous times as a teenager. He faced a long sentence after a drug bust when he was 17. Only a police officer's judgement call spared him a fate that would have derailed his basketball career forever.
Now — finally — the 35-year-old, two-time All Star and 2011 NBA champion wants to tell the world his story.
Partly, this is because Butler finally feels comfortable. He's also among the league's most respected veterans now, and he's seen all too often how young people from tough backgrounds — even his millionaire teammates — can struggle to shed the demons and burdens of their past.
"You learn from trial and error," Butler told Mashable recently. "But as you become a veteran guy in the league, you try to assert yourself as a good influence on the younger guys."
Some players can never truly leave their pasts behind; Lamar Odom's recent struggles prove this to devastating effect. Butler, however, was lucky to learn early.
Butler was 17. Racine, Wisconsin, police sergeant Rick Geller obtained a warrant to search the house he was living in. Crack cocaine was found there, and Butler already had a long criminal history. But when talking to Butler, Geller felt he'd just met a kid with the capacity to turn his life around despite a challenging environment. Geller decided not to charge Butler, sparing him a potential 10-year sentence.
Butler's contrasting lives before and after that moment of compassion are the subject his recent autobiography, Tuff Juice: My Journey From the Streets to the NBA. Co-authored with Steve Springer at an easily digestible 256 pages, Butler's is a tale made for the Hollywood screen. The player even has an actor in mind.
After Geller gave Butler a second chance, the teenager rededicated himself to basketball and left the streets behind for good.
"I played against Darius Miles and all these guys that were ranked very high nationally, and I performed extremely well," Butler says today. "I got a lot of looks from colleges and I was just like, 'Man, I can really do something with this basketball thing.'"
Butler moved away to prep school in Maine, then starred at the University of Connecticut's powerhouse program. He was an NBA lottery pick in 2002, won an NBA title with the Mavericks in 2011 and is currently beginning his 14th season in the league.
Now Butler feels compelled to share his story, from its darkest moments to its most glorious highs.
"It's about making it out — making it out of all these situations and scenarios," Butler says. "So many people are going through so much right now, from financial stability to lacking focus or inspiration or opportunity. I just wanted to put this out for motivational purposes. You can do it. You can do anything. Seeing is believing."
While Butler says he didn't feel comfortable enough to open up about his past earlier in his career, he did start letting the idea of a memoir marinate the very day he became a pro.
"Once I made it to the draft, after everything I'd gone through, I just started jotting down notes all the time," Butler recalls. "Just things that bothered me, good things that happened. I was like, 'Man, this gonna be a book and potentially a movie one day.'"
About that movie: Butler says his management team is "in the process of working on some huge things" without divulging any specifics. But he does allow that Mark Wahlberg would make an excellent Sergeant Geller — and the actor, it happens, wrote an endorsement blurb for the back cover of Tuff Juice.
But who would play Butler himself?
"Well, a guy whose work I love is Michael B. Jordan," Butler says.
So, a Caron Butler movie starring Michael B. Jordan and Mark Wahlberg? It'd be quite a next chapter in Butler's incredible journey — but then again, he's seen crazier things happen.