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LEXINGTON, Ky. — The story of how Lamont Butler became one of the best defenders in college basketball starts inside the Moreno Valley Mall. Butler, who was 10 at the time, was pretending to play basketball with his cousin in the corridor as they waited for his sister to shop.
A large man with a booming voice approached: “Hey! What are y’all doing?” Advertisement “We thought we were in trouble,” Butler said, flashing a grin. Instead, the man was Andre Spencer, who played professional basketball overseas for years in addition to short stints with the Golden State Warriors, Atlanta Hawks and Sacramento Kings, and he wanted to know whether the boys played more organized basketball. Spencer ran a team — the West Coast Warriors — and handed them a card.
A few weeks later, Butler’s father, Lamont Sr., called the number, and the boys joined the team. Butler took to Spencer’s demanding coaching right away.
If his man caught the ball or beat him off the dribble, he was coming out of the game, and Butler hated leaving the floor. Spencer eventually encouraged the Butlers to find a more elite team after Lamont Jr. outgrew his program’s competition level, but he created a mentality that has never left.
“He gave me a bunch of gems and diamonds,” Butler said. “Andre set the table,” Lamont Sr. said, “for him being a top defender in the country.
” Butler is Kentucky’s most important player, even if the stat sheet does not scream it. The fifth-year transfer guard is having the best statistical season of his college career — averaging 12.0 points per game (third on the team) and a team-leading 4.
5 assists and 1.7 steals — but his value has always been judged by his team’s success. During his four years at San Diego State, the Aztecs made the NCAA Tournament every year and reached the 2023 national title game.
And this year, the Cats are significantly better when Butler is on the floor — by 18.6 points per 100 possessions, with two-thirds of that marginal improvement coming on the defensive end. This week Kentucky begins its first postseason under coach Mark Pope as the No.
8 seed in the loaded SEC tournament. The Wildcats have had stretches of looking like a team that could do some damage in March, with seven wins over teams ranked in the top 15 of the AP poll, and they have a solid excuse for not finishing even higher in a historically deep league: Butler missed six conference games with a shoulder injury, and the Cats went 2-4 in those games. “Winner,” Pope said.
“He’s not about himself.” GO DEEPER Why Mark Pope's Kentucky honeymoon phase refuses to fade Butler also is not about the numbers. At San Diego State, the coaches kept defensive charts grading every player’s performance — pluses for deflections and charges, minuses for being in the wrong spot or getting beat.
Box score or defensive chart: Which did Butler care about more? “Chart, for sure,” he said. “You’re going to see that chart every game.” Advertisement It’s always been this way.
Lamont Sr. remembers double-taking that his son was controlling the center when he’d play NBA 2K. Lamont Jr.
says it’s more fun to set screens and block shots than score. That makes it a little ironic that the signature moment of Butler’s college career so far is a jump shot, the buzzer-beater he made to beat Florida Atlantic in the 2023 Final Four . Butler became a celebrity in San Diego because of that run, seeing his image plastered on the side of an apartment building near campus and fielding autograph and photo requests from strangers.
“The work stayed the same,” he said. “I was just on more people’s radars.” Butler followed that up with a season that earned him Mountain West defensive player of the year honors and ended with the Aztecs back in the Sweet 16.
He could have returned for a fifth season and likely set some school records (he graduated fifth in SDSU history in steals), but he wanted to “challenge myself in a different way” and use his pandemic-waiver bonus year of eligibility somewhere that would help him get to the NBA. As coach at BYU, Pope had played against Butler four times, including a 2022 game in which Butler racked up six steals against the Cougars. Pope resorted to telling his players in future games against San Diego State to keep the ball on whichever side of the floor Butler wasn’t.
After entering the portal, Butler went to Las Vegas to camp out and work on his game with trainer Joe Abunassar. He told his parents he wanted to take his time and hear out every school that was interested. The Kentucky staff initially scheduled a trip to Vegas for the next week, but Pope scrapped that plan and made Butler a priority as soon as he found out he was available.
“No-brainer for me,” Pope said. “We can teach skills and schemes and all this stuff and all the things, and you can help guys grow into that. But when you find a guy that’s got a winner DNA, you better go get him.
” Advertisement So on the second day Butler was in the portal, the UK staff flew to Vegas. “It’s like they came in like the Men in Black,” Lamont Sr. remembers.
Pope and his staff laid out how they saw Butler fitting in their system and as a leader. They valued his defense, but they thought they could get even more offensive production out of him with their pace and style of play. Butler initially told Pope he had about 10 minutes to talk before he needed to start working out; an hour and a half later, the coaches stepped out so Butler could talk to his parents.
He’d made up his mind. “He was so genuine,” Butler said. “I trusted him.
You could tell this is a person that you would want to be around, who you want to be coached by, with the brand of Kentucky behind him. I was already a Kentucky fan. It seemed like the best opportunity, and you can’t pass up those kinds of opportunities.
” Last summer, Pope got immediate validation that he’d landed the right point guard when he received word that Butler had been there for one of his teammates dealing with a family member who had fallen ill. As a distraction, Butler and his teammate ended up writing a song together. “He cares,” Pope says.
“You’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s the dorkiest thing I’ve ever heard,’ but it was exactly what his teammate needed in the moment.” Kentucky has delivered on its promises as well. Butler’s per-game statistical averages, efficiency metrics and shooting numbers are all career bests.
The difference? “Just a lot of confidence,” Butler said. “That was the main thing that (Pope) instilled in me from day one — confidence to be a leader, confidence to play freely, play my game. I think he instills that in everybody, just with the relationship that he builds with each and every player.
” Butler always has been at his best in March, and Pope built this roster with the end in mind. Though the Cats do not have a clear-cut star, they do have a leader who has already shown he can perform on the biggest stage and shut down the best player. Advertisement It’s also possible we haven’t seen his best yet.
Pope has been impressed by Butler’s curiosity and hunger to get better. He’s often picking the brains of UK’s staff members. From assistant Alvin Brooks III, for instance, he’s asked him about the guards he coached at Baylor and what made them great, especially on the defensive end.
As with his younger basketball years, Lamont Butler is always looking for diamonds. (Photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images).
