For Caron Butler, playing for the Clippers is no hard time From Orlando, Fla. -- Day 1 of getting to better know the Clippers and I'm telling Caron Butler he better not stink against the Magic because I will be writing about him. It's really a stupid statement and Butler is kind enough to not say so as he heads off to the morning shootaround. Come on, what am I going to do to the guy? He's already been in Juvenile Court 15 times on drug and weapons charges by the time he's 15. He served nearly a year in prison, and one by one he pays for the burial of the four friends who he used to hang with in the neighborhood park. So I'm going to go all serious on someone nicknamed "Tuff Juice," who has already proved himself a winner getting here even if he never makes another basket? If not for an ankle monitor keeping him grounded on his front porch after his release from prison, he probably joins a friend who wants to go to the park. His friend goes without him and two hours later he's shot dead. "So you think you can put some heat on him?" says Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro, and he gets a good laugh out of that. Well, Butler misses his first shot against the Magic. And his second, but then if greatness is measured by one's ability to overcome adversity, Butler is already one of sports all-time high hurdlers. As far as he has come, Butler says, maybe only one or two of his teammates know much about it. "I catch them listening to music sometimes talking about indictments, how the system works and stuff like that," he says. I'll say something and they'll look at me in my suit and tie and say something like, what would he know? I'll just sit back, laugh and put my headphones back on. He's No. 5, as any Clippers fan knows now, but he was just a number, just another inmate behind bars after taking a gun to school. "It's been a long journey," Butler says, his first drug deal coming at age 11 and netting him $38. What happened to me in my life; being shot at; carrying pistols; having the opportunity to shoot at others; and all these close things - robberies and everything - it has to be a higher power who has allowed me to be where I am now. He also gets an assist from J-Fee, a local drug dealer, who gives Butler $5,000 to leave the neighborhood, attend a prep school and give himself a chance to attend college. "J-Fee just got released from federal prison," says Butler, and so has Butler repaid the $5,000? "And then some," he says, "along with a big hug." "Incredible" doesn't quite cover it when talking about a young man like Butler, parked in solitary confinement for fighting a rival gang member. A slot in the door of his prison cell allows guards to feed him, but here he is in a swank hotel, sitting in his NBA warmups and waiters waiting only for his nod. "Tell me I'd be here while I was sitting in solitary wondering what I was going to do with the one hour they let me out every day," he says, "and I would have said you are a liar. If someone told me I'd be working at a construction company that would've been more believable. I never saw this basketball thing coming.