Dwyane Wade's guidance bringing out best in Jimmy Butler

Chicago Bulls small forward Jimmy Butler knows what's about to come out of his mouth is powerful.

He wants to convey just how much influence shooting guard Dwyane Wade has had on him since Wade signed with the Bulls as a free agent in July. So when he's asked what he has learned most during the 34-year-old's brief time with the Bulls, Butler is ready with his response.

"To be a m-----f----- every time you step on the floor," Butler told ESPN.com recently. The words are jarring. It's not often that a professional athlete is that direct in his or her commentary while a recorder rolls. But Butler, the 27-year-old All-Star swingman, wants to leave no doubt about the mindset Wade has helped him fine-tune.

"You go out with a killer instinct," Butler added. "You go out showing why you're the best player on the court. That's literally what [Wade] told me.

"Coming from him, a Hall of Famer, one of the greatest 2-guards to play this game, I think he still thinks like that. That's what's scary [for the rest of the league]."

The evolution of Butler's game continues to surprise people all over the NBA. He enters Sunday's showdown in San Antonio averaging 24.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game.

Before Wade signed in Chicago, he wanted to make sure that Butler signed off on the move.

"If the star player on the team doesn't reach out to me, then I don't think he's really excited about me coming there," Wade said recently. "If Jimmy don't reach out to me, then I'm not coming to Chicago because I don't think Jimmy wants me here. But Jimmy reaches out to me and says, 'D, I want you to come.'"

For Butler, the decision to reach out to Wade before he committed to the Bulls was a no-brainer.

"That was easy," Butler said. "Because that was just two competitors, two good guys, wanting to link up and try to make something special happen in Chicago.

"He's been in my corner since Day 1, since we started this thing. I'm fortunate, man. I'm extremely blessed to have a guy like that on this team that's pointing me, leading me in the right direction."

Despite their shared history of being proud Marquette alums, Butler says the pair didn't know each other that well. "We've kept in touch a little bit, but for the most part he was an enemy," Butler said. "I was trying to go at his throat every time I played against him and prove my spot in this league as well.

"I didn't know the person that he was, what he does in the community, the father that he is, the role model, the person that comes with being Dwyane Wade.

"That's more amazing than anything he's ever done on the basketball court to me."

When Wade finally agreed to sign with the Bulls, he quickly showed the polish off the floor that made him one of the league's most popular stars. He handled questions from the media with patience and poise while making an important distinction about the hierarchy on the Bulls' roster.

"This is Jimmy's team," Wade said. "It won't be a tug-and-pull whose team it is."

As fate would have it, Butler, who would play in an exhibition game later that night at the United Center as part of Team USA, was standing in the back of Wade's media conference wearing a proud smile on his face.

"To tell you the truth, it didn't mean too much to me," Butler says now of the public declaration made by Wade and by point guard Rajon Rondo, the Bulls' other big offseason addition, a few weeks earlier.

"Only because I think you have to say certain things just to get it out of the way. ... I don't care whose team it is. I just want to win. I just want us to help each other win, be successful and do what we came here to do."

Privately, those who watched Butler grow from a seldom-used bench player in his first two seasons to an All-Star in his past two believe Wade's words meant much more. For the first time in his career, Butler didn't have to worry about his place within the locker room. He was now the unquestioned face of the Bulls, a point hammered home by NBA champions Wade and Rondo.

After winning Olympic gold in Rio, Butler came back to Chicago, where he and Wade hit it off immediately in preparation for the new season. Early in his career, Butler had a veteran mentor he looked up to and respected in former Bull Luol Deng, but Deng didn't have the type of championship cache that Wade possesses.

Wade has three NBA championship rings and has become a worldwide celebrity. But the key for the Bulls, and for Butler, is that Wade is still playing at a high level in his 13th season in the league.

The intangible effects Wade has had on Butler's game are subtle but important. Butler says he is watching more tape in part because of the importance Wade places on it, and the pair warms up together on the road.

It's the work ethic Butler possesses that stands out to Wade most.

"When you're with somebody up close, you get to see the work they put in," Wade said. "I see the work he puts in in the weight room. I see the work he puts in on the court. I see the work he puts in on film. You don't know that from afar. You know he's a talented player. You know he plays hard. But you don't see the work he puts in. I see all of it. I know this guy wants to be great. That's half the battle.

"Some people are OK with being average. He's not. He wants to be great. Me personally, someone who came from a similar background where I was under-recruited and not highly touted early, I respect that. He's on the right path."

Bulls executive Gar Forman sees the similarities between the two proud athletes as well.

"You could just tell watching them that they've really clicked," Forman said. "Their personalities click. I think they've probably got a lot of similarities in how driven they are to have success. And having both gone to Marquette, I think both are guys that had to earn their place as they went along. So I think Dwyane has been very good for Jimmy, but I think Jimmy's been good for Dwyane also."

The Bulls knew that in Wade, they were getting a player who would help them in a variety of areas on and off the floor. But privately, Bulls executives were hopeful that Wade could do for Butler what he did for LeBron James in Miami. James was already a superstar before he got to the Heat, but Wade was able to show him how to fit into the fabric of a championship team.

"Obviously when he got there, he was a great player," Wade said of James. "He was on the verge. He was going to win a championship one day. You knew that day was coming. The one thing from the standpoint of my leadership and my calmness and my ability to prepare, I think all those things rubbed off on him as well. Just like the things he did rubbed off on me. That's a sign of people who respect each other, two great players."

Without prompting, Wade sees the similarities between the point where Butler is and James was when their paths crossed with Wade.

"The same thing here with Jimmy. I'm trying to rub off on Jimmy," Wade said. "But at the same time, Jimmy is rubbing off on me too. That's what it's about. You'll have to ask [James] exactly what he learned from me or took out of it. But for sure, we both took something from each other."

Wade's presence has given Butler both more confidence and more guidance. With Wade's support, Butler has become more comfortable within the framework of his team, a difference noticed up and down the organization.

"Every day I'm surprised," Bulls power forward Taj Gibson said of Butler's growth. "Especially this year, I'm surprised at how mature he is. He's a lot more mature than he was, as far as being how he's been with the guys, how he's communicating. He's always critiquing the game, but he's always positive.

"Last year, he had his times when he was questioning things, and he didn't know how to let it out. But this year, having D-Wade I think helps him a lot."

Wade and Butler's ability to get on the same page so quickly has set the tone for the rest of their teammates to follow. Players marvel at how many times there have been team activities where the entire team shows up, a far cry from the division within last season's squad. Wade helped organize a movie trip to see "Bleed for This" during the Bulls' trip to Salt Lake City. Butler helped organize an excursion to an amusement complex in Denver. Butler is the first to acknowledge that all the good vibes will only last if the Bulls continue to win, but the happy times have come a lot faster than many expected with the Bulls racking up 10 wins over the first month of the season.

"As much as you see guys around each other you would think we live in a dorm," Butler said.

"[There is] something about this group of guys, we just always want to be around each other. We realize we're all we have whenever we step out onto the United Center floor or an away game.

"It's us, it's these coaches, it's this organization."

Butler wants to make it clear he doesn't think it's an overstatement to say how much Wade has helped him get comfortable in his new role as the face of the franchise.

"No, I think that is the right thing to say," Butler said. "At first you wonder how everything's going to work and then you get in here and it's working better than you could have ever imagined. And that's with everybody, not just with D-Wade, but it's just the confidence that he gives me on a daily basis, on a nightly basis of how I have to do things. How I have to go about the game. It helps because I don't always look at it like that. I never pictured myself being in this position. But he's been here before. He's done a much better job than I have, that's for sure, but he's helping. And with everything that he's saying, I'm buying into it."

Wade couldn't have known that his transition to Chicago would be this seamless, but he has never wavered in his belief of Butler from Day 1. He knows Butler is a great player, but he believes he can help him become even better.

"The kid is good, man," Wade said. "And right now he's only scratching the surface. What he's starting to see -- it's hard. It's not going to be easy. He's not going to just walk out there and get those numbers. He's going to be tired at the end of the night, but he can do that on a consistent basis. And once he starts seeing it, he knows we have his back. The nights that he doesn't have it we're going to have to pick him up and have big nights, but he's leading us."

The beauty of Wade and Butler's partnership is that each man understands his role in the other's success. Butler knows that at 27, he is going to have to carry the mantle of leading his team to victory each night. He wants that responsibility and doesn't shy away from the challenge. Butler realizes that he has to do for the Bulls what Wade used to do on a nightly basis for the Heat.

At 34, Wade knows that in order for his new team to win, he has to lean on Butler the same way his older teammates used to lean on him. He has to help mentor Butler and instill in his younger teammate that he has to the ability to take over whenever he wants.