Caron Butler was 22 when he arrived in the NBA from UConn, older by a year than Pistons starters Andre Drummond and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Now on the verge of his 800th NBA game – which comes Tuesday in Milwaukee, a cab ride from his hometown of Racine, Wis. – he remembers what it was like to deal with the emotional ebbs and flows of an 82-game season at such an age.
"I was an extremely emotional player, so when things didn't go as I wanted them to go, you usually listen to the people around you – family members, friends," he said after Monday's Pistons practice. "That's all good, but the only thing that matters is the group of guys right here in the locker room. All those folks love us unconditionally, but they're going to tell us exactly what we want to hear. The constructive criticism is going to come from the reality of the film we watch. We've just got to be honest with one another and continue to get better."
Butler, 34, passed on opportunities to sign with title contenders to be a part of the rebuilding of the Pistons under Stan Van Gundy, an assistant under Pat Riley in Miami when Butler was drafted in 2002. At 3-10, Butler knows that it was for times like this that he was wanted by Van Gundy and what appealed to him about accelerating the process.
"You've got to stay as positive as possible and take the positives from every kind of a negative situation, losses, and just continue to build. It's challenging for me," he said. "Practice to practice, game to game, city to city, we have to continue to appreciate these times and in adversity, that reveals your character. We've got to stay committed and together and just continue to get better. We're right there."
The only Piston other than Butler on the dark side of 30 is Joel Anthony, who sits outside the playing rotation. And as Van Gundy has noted, it's tough to exert leadership unless you're playing and can back up words with action. So Butler, averaging 7.9 points and 4.5 rebounds in 27 minutes a game, is front and center as a willing voice of leadership.
"It's coming from a committee. Obviously, it's coming from myself, it's coming from the coaching staff," he said. "Jodie's (Meeks) not out there, but he's still vocal on the sideline. Cartier (Martin), he's been around for some time. Joel. Everybody's instilling the right things in these guys and planting the right seeds. It's coming along. It's a process. When I signed up for this this summer, I knew it was going to be a process. I know that it could be really bad before it gets good or it could just be good right away. I didn't know what it was going to be, but I knew it was going to be a process and it was something that I was up for and I'm embracing it."
Neither Meeks, out since the first preseason game and unlikely to be back before mid-December, nor Martin has played in a regular-season game yet, though Martin was dressed and available for the first time in the most recent game after recovering from a bout of plantar fasciitis in his right foot. Aaron Gray, another of Van Gundy's free agents brought in for his veteran presence and toughness, never made it to training camp and was waived after experienced an August cardiac episode.
So Butler soldiers on, shouldering a larger share of the leadership mantle than he likely ever thought necessary. As dire as the 3-10 start feels for a team that expected better of itself, Butler – speaking through the prism of 13 seasons of NBA perspective – tries to convey the message that success isn't as far away or elusive as it can seem when it keeps slipping off of their fingertips.
"Just continue to chip away at it," he said. "Our practices have gotten more intense. The effort is at an all-time high, the urgency is. And we're right there. You look at every game, we're in or had a great lead and it just comes down to keeping the sense of urgency and executing down the stretch."