GREENVILLE - Ethan Whitney has watched his favorite athlete, Jimmy Butler, play plenty of basketball.
Butler, a four-time NBA All-Star, spent six seasons with the Chicago Bulls before joining the Minnesota Timberwolves last year. He's been All-NBA twice, played in the playoffs in six of his seven seasons and once scored 53 points in a game.
But there's one game Butler played that Ethan, a 16-year-old junior at Hortonville High School, is going to remember more than the rest.
The game when they were teammates.
"I was kind of nervous, but he was like, 'It doesn't matter how many times you miss. You've got to keep shooting,'" Whitney said. "So I just kept shooting."
The unlikely duo got in a run together late last month thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Whitney, who lives in Greenville, is undergoing treatment for B-cell lymphoma. He was diagnosed last August and next month will undergo the first of two needed stem cell transplants.
A game of two-on-two — with Ethan and the NBA superstar as one team, Ethan's dad and Butler's brother the other — was part of a day spent together in California.
Whitney, along with his parents and sister, flew to Los Angeles on June 28 for the weekend adventure. The next day, they met Butler at his house and got a tour. They went to a nearby middle school gym to play a little ball, then went to play paintball.
The day was documented by ESPN for the "My Wish" series. The segment will debut Thursday during the 5 p.m. "SportsCenter."
"It just didn’t seem like he was with an NBA player," said Ethan's mom, Jennifer Sabourin, "other than he was amazing at basketball. Because he just didn’t come off that way to him. He was very warm and welcoming to the whole family, bringing us into his home.
"He just treated Ethan with such respect and grace. He was wonderful."
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Sabourin said with the transplants coming up — each of which will require hospitalization for four to six weeks — the trip gave a huge boost to Ethan's spirits. It's something positive he'll have to talk about during the tough times ahead.
What are the stories he'll tell?
"The best part of the day was probably playing two-on-two with Jimmy Butler because I did a behind-the-back pass and he dunked it," Ethan said. "I thought that was pretty awesome."
"I could just feel my parents like freaking out over me picking it," he said. "But Jimmy Butler said it's only materialistic things, it doesn't matter, they're just cars, they can be replaced. ... So I picked the Escalade because it was the nicest."
Turns out he made the right choice. It was a better ride than his 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix, he said.
Besides spending time with Butler, Ethan and his family got to spend the second full day of their trip at Universal Studios and the U.S.S. Iowa Museum. ("Ethan's a huge history buff," Sabourin said.)
"It’s definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done," Ethan said. "It’s not every day you get to go meet an NBA player. There are definitely vacations I’ve been on with friends that were awesome but this one probably takes the cake."
Ethan Whitney, a 16-year-old from Greenville, spent a day last month hanging out with NBA star Jimmy Butler thanks to an effort from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The day was documented by ESPN and will be featured as part of the "My Wish" series during the 5 p.m. edition of "SportsCenter" on Thursday. The "My Wish" series, hosted by Chris Connelly, is in its 13th season. Since it launched in 2006, "My Wish" has been partnered with Make-A-Wish and has fulfilled 63 sports-themed wishes.
