Jimmy Butler has been one of -- if not the -- primary reasons the Miami Heat are in the NBA Finals. However, he also might have a hidden talent: predicting the future.
On Wednesday at the French Open, tennis star Coco Gauff, who is a South Florida native, revealed that Butler promised to get her tickets to the NBA Finals -- before the NBA postseason even began.
"I said: 'I won't be here. I'll be in Madrid and then Rome and then France,'" Gauff told reporters at the French Open about a conversation she had with Butler about the Heat and NBA playoffs in April. "And then he said: 'OK, when we make the Finals, let me know if your family wants some tickets.'"
Even Gauff, in retelling the story, was impressed by the confidence Butler had in his team.
"This is before we lost to the Hawks for the first Play-In game," Gauff said. "Everybody is like 'we have a 3% chance of making the Finals,' but when he sent me that, I knew we were making the Finals because he didn't say, 'If we make the Finals,' he said: 'When we make the Finals.' Now that we are in the Finals, I can say that story."
Gauff has even used the Heat's magical playoff run to motivate her at the French Open.
"Honestly, today, I told myself 'if Jimmy Butler didn't freak out when they were up 3-0 and all of a sudden it's 3-all, then I shouldn't freak out after losing the first set,'" she said after coming back to defeat Rebeka Masarova in the opening round of the tournament.
The Heat are just the second No. 8 seed in NBA history to advance all the way to the NBA Finals. They'll face off against the Denver Nuggets in Game 1 on Thursday night.