Jackie Butler
Jackie Butler (born March 10, 1985) is an American retired professional basketball player. Early life. Butler was born in McComb, Mississippi and attended McComb High School and originally committed to play at Mississippi State University but failed to qualify academically. He later enrolled at Laurinburg Institute, then transferred to Coastal Christian Academy prep school in Virginia Beach. Although he wanted to sign with the University of Tennessee in 2004, he decided to declare for the 2004 NBA draft, the first player that year to do so. Professional career. Butler went undrafted in the 2004 NBA draft and signed  as a free agent with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was then cut training camp. Butler began the 2004–05 season with the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) where over 40 games with the Great Lakes Storm he averaged 18.1 points, 10.7 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game. He was named the CBA Rookie of the Year and selected to the All-CBA First Team. On February 27, 2005, Butler signed with the New York Knicks for the rest of the 2004–05 NBA season, scoring ten points over three games. 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 preseason, Brown publicly commented on how happy he was with Butler, and considered him his fourth rookie (after 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 Knicks careers. For the 2005–06 NBA season Butler played in 55 games averaging 13.5 minutes, 5.3 points (54.4% field goal accuracy) and 3.3 rebounds  per game. He earned US$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 October 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 2007–08 NBA preseason (October 2007).