LAIE, Hawaii - Gui Santos did not see the idea happen. He just saw the aftermath. And he was incredibly confused, one day this week, when 27-year-old Malevy Leons walked out to the Golden State Warriors' practice with practically the entire locker of available on-court accessories draped on his body.
Blue arm sleeve, on one arm. Yellow arm sleeve, on the other. Black headband. White knee sleeves. All this for a soft-spoken young man, in Leons, who often zips to and from the Chase Center on a Lime scooter and asked the Chronicle after a Saturday interview if help was needed to put away a set of folding chairs.
"I was like, ‘Mal, what's going on? What's you doing? '" Santos recalled, grinning.
"He's like, ‘Man, I'm trying to get my swag up. Jimmy talked to me about that.'"
This was an idea hatched, actually, last week in San Diego, when injured forward Jimmy Butler hosted teammates at his house amid a players-only minicamp. He has "taken a liking" to two-way forward Leons, a native of the Netherlands who came to Park Hills, Mo., in 2019 to play JUCO ball. Butler played JUCO once, too.
So Leons, for a week in Hawaii, has been cycling through garments like an NBA 2K MyPlayer. He took them all off on the last day of camp Saturday. Swag turned off.
"Jimmy's staying active," a smiling head coach Steve Kerr said, "with his humor."
Plenty of other ways, too. There is no possible way to rush back from an ACL tear, as Kerr pointed out Saturday; if Butler could, he would. He did not stop moving much, at an open scrimmage Thursday at BYU-Hawaii, watching from the sidelines. He wandered around the perimeter of the floor. He shot a couple layups. He spun a basketball on his finger.
How bad, exactly, does Butler, 37, want to be out there?
"I think you cannot measure that," Santos said. "It's crazy."
Instead, Butler has been going through the slow machinations of a rehabilitation plan set forth by Warriors director of performance Rick Celebrini and longtime trainer Armando Rivas, who has followed Butler across every NBA stop he ever has had. This is grunt-work, in paradise. Every morning in Hawaii, Butler has been coming to BYU's gym to get shots up and do on-court work while coaches watch film before practice; then comes rehab work.
No short-cuts. No medical miracles. Butler underwent surgery on his torn ACL in February 2026; according to years of historical data, that would put his possible return somewhere around February 2027.
"I know that I will return still being able to play at a high level, but I want to hoop now," Butler said at Monday's media day. "I wanted to hoop two months ago, three months ago. I want to go out there and compete with my guys, with (Draymond Green), be Robin again to (Stephen Curry's) Batman. I know I will be able to do that at an incredibly high level, but I just miss the game. I miss not being around my guys."
Butler still has been, though, in Hawaii. And his impact is being felt. There's plenty of tangibles. He shot free throws for the team, after one practice, to ensure they didn't have to run. He is "working really hard" with Leons, as Kerr said, a potentially blooming Buddy-cop relationship that almost certainly will not involve the polite Leons giving it back to Butler as much as Buddy Hield did.
And Butler also has a protege - one he might not even realize - in the 24-year-old Santos, who earned a three-year contract extension last February and will be relied upon heavily to fill Butler's void for much of the season. Santos took a massive offensive leap after Butler's injury last season, but was often getting sped up with a larger offensive burden. He averaged 15.3 points a game from February on; he also had a ho-hom 1.6-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Santos has looked to Butler's game for direct guidance this upcoming season.
"When he was playing, I was watching him playing, like, all the time," Santos told the Chronicle on Thursday. "And that's all he does - he's always under control. Nobody speeds him up. Doesn't matter how tall is the guy, how strong is the guy. Jimmy will get to the spot that he wants to get. He's gonna take his time. He will either pass, like, find a great shot, or he will shoot it and make a good play. So just watching that was a big thing for me.
"And now, I've just gotta get better doing that, get better, get better, get better," Santos continued a few words later, "because that's the thing that's gonna make me go to the next level."
This mirroring has been obvious in camp to teammates.
"Definitely does that," Leons said, asked on Santos' learnings from Butler. "Like, the two-foot stuff - he kind of uses the same stuff that Jimmy does, the multiple fakes Jimmy always does."
Butler has been around in Hawaii. He might not always be this season on the road as he continues rehabbing. He'll take what he can get.
"It's never all bad," Butler said at media day. "I'm not going to sit here and say it's all good, either. But I think my main job is going to be like, ‘Hey, guys, I can't go out there and play with you individuals, but that doesn't mean that this is a bad day. I still get to be around y'all. I still get to call myself an NBA player.'"
And when he is around, of course, he'll still be talking smack. Butler went down a line of coaches at Friday's practice, Leons recalled, and told them he'd beat them all one-on-one.
"He was just shooting," Leons said, "and he was like, ‘Oh, I'll get buckets on you as well.'"
SubscribeThere’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at Warriors' Jimmy Butler has stayed active at training camp in Hawaii despite ACL rehab.