Jimmy Butler is not just a born basketball player but also a businessman. The Heat forward is playing in his first NBA finals against the Denver Nuggets and showing out on the court. Butler has proved a lot this playoff run and generally impressed the NBA world. He has shown the Miami front office why he is deserving of his $37 million contract and marketed himself to the fullest extent to potential sponsors.
Butler is a different breed of player, one who isn’t a quiet superstar such as his finals opponent Nikola Jokic. This makes Butler very appealing to companies as he’s a big personality on and off the court. This is evident through Butler’s business venture, Big Face Coffee. When it comes to shoe deals, Butler left industry giant Jordan in 2020, to sign with Li-Ning in hopes of finally receiving his signature shoe.
Jimmy Butler’s shoe deal with Li-Ning pays him $3 million a year
It’s significantly less than the five million dollars a year he was receiving from Nike (Jordan) but for a man whose net worth is upwards of $80 million, Butler would much rather trade off a few million dollars as compared to having his own shoe.
In November of 2021, Li-Ning released the JB1, Butler’s debut signature sneaker in the colorway “Tough.” As an homage to his current team, the shoe features mostly red and orange accents, the main colors of the Miami Heat. The shoe is packed to the brim with technology as Li-Ning is known for innovating in the basketball shoe space, using the best materials and the newest shoe tech.
The upper material consists of a phylon that shows the surface to be different colors depending on the angle the shoe is looked at. The shoe has an electroplated TPU that takes the form of a cage-like structure and aesthetically resembles that of a flame. The Li-Ning logo on the side atop a carbon fiber shank is known to give hoopers the best power return on explosive moves. The shoe has an orange outsole in this colorway.
Butler will be proud of his work on the shoe and with how sales are trending, with Li-Ning on the rise we don’t expect Butler to regret his decision to switch from Jordan to the Chinese giants. At the end of the day, Butler is a huge personality in the NBA world that deserves to be represented by a shoe company that understands his value and what he brings to the table as one of the best basketball players in the world.
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