The alleged demand for a trade from Jimmy Butler has caused a great stir among the Minnesota Timberwolves. There are many reasons for this. On the one hand the chemistry with the young stars is not right, on the other hand Butler is not satisfied with his contract. The demand also increases the pressure on Coach and GM Tom Thibodeau. Is a trade now inevitable?
It was supposed to be the turning point for the suffering Minnesota Timberwolves. In June 2017, the Wolves grabbed Jimmy Butler in a real blockbuster trade. The hard worker was to lead the franchise back into the playoffs after 14 long years and teach the young stars Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins what it means to be a star in this league.
With a lot of noise and energy, at least the former was achieved, even though round one against the Houston Rockets ended after just five games. But Butler could not provide for a culture of hard workers either, who according to various media reports collided not only once with the two youngsters.
As soon as Butler arrived, he (rightly) claimed the role of the leader for himself and demonstrated this to the media. “We need to shake off all the bad habits and be ready for what’s coming,” Butler Shams Charania (then Yahoo) said in an interview.
“I don’t accept bad habits and no one in this league should. It doesn’t matter how young you are. It’s about commitment, about the will to make it.” Obviously Butler indirectly addressed KAT and Wiggins – two former No.1 picks blessed with talents Butler himself did not have.
Both were hyped-up in their youth, while Butler had to work hard. In 2011, the Chicago Bulls around then coach Tom Thibodeau took the Shooting Guard to position 30, and the coach’s favourite took it step by step up the career ladder.
Rotation player, starter, star, max-player – Butler got nothing for free, but his work attitude is unparalleled. He fought against resistance that Towns or Wiggins didn’t know, so Butler was all the more frustrated after the season when he was allowed to experience up close that they left something on the table.
Despite all these obvious problems, this is not the main reason why Butler is said to have demanded a trade in a meeting with coach and GM Thibodeau. According to a report by Jon Krawczynski (The Athletic), monetary reasons also led Butler to this drastic demand.
Butler hoped for a renegotiation of his contract (such as Robert Covington with the Sixers) and a salary increase to 30 million dollars for the coming season, as well as an extension for another four years for 145 million. However, this is not an option for the Wolves, since this would only have become possible if they had been at least five million dollars below the cap (they are currently 20 million above).
In return, the Wolves would have had to save some salary and trade players (and probably picks), putting their own competitiveness at risk. As an alternative, Thibs Butler’s front office presented the classic four-year Max extension for 110 million from 2019, which he gratefully rejected.
Butler is now banking on the maximum five-year contract next summer, which could earn him up to 188 million – only that he does not seem to want to sign it in Minnesota. Of course, the Guard could just hire with another team in the summer, but then he would only get a maximum of 140 million for four years. The required trade would give the new team the bird rights and thus the chance to offer five years.
Therefore it is not surprising that Butler’s list for desired destinations looks like this, according to Adrian Wojnarowski (ESPN): Los Angeles Clippers, Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks. These are teams that will play in large markets on the one hand, but also have room for two maximum contracts in summer 2019 on the other.
Whether one of these teams actually wants to set up a trade, however, is still completely unclear. At least the Knicks emphasized throughout the summer that they want to use this game time to develop their own players and then attack in the Free Agency. At the same time, the Wolves would receive comparatively little for Butler, as the 28-year-old’s contract expires and the host team has no guarantee that the Guard will actually sign a new contract this summer.
And then there’s the Timberwolves’ side. According to Charania, Thibs is not willing to give up his pupil and star. That’s understandable because Thibodeau is also the coach and wants to win games – the difficulty of the double function, which is now dying out again after similar experiments with the Clippers with Doc Riveres or the Detroit Pistons with Stan Van Gundy failed.
Especially for Thibodeau, a lot is at stake in the Butler case and also explains why the coach/GM didn’t get tired of playing down the numerous rumours about disagreements in the organisation during the off-season. The former Bulls coach is now entering his third season in Minneapolis and was mainly brought in to defensively get more out of the team. But even with the butler trade this was only possible to a limited extent. The Wolves were a top 5 opener last season, but only 22nd in the defensive rating.
With Butler the culture should be improved, a winning mentality should be filtered in, but this is still far away in Minnesota. The butler trade looks worse for the Wolves every day. With Kris Dunn and Zach LaVine two young players were sacrificed, the rights to Lauri Markkanen were given to the Windy City, while Butler and a Pick (Justin Patton) were given to you.
Should Thibs hand over Butler again, he would have sold some silverware and in principle got nothing for it. A circumstance that does not suit anyone well and should raise questions at the highest level, i.e. with owner Glen Taylor. Considering that Wiggins’ highly questionable extension (5 years, 147.7 million) is only just beginning and Towns has still not signed a rookie extension, it can be seen that Thibodeau has not yet been able to turn the tide of the franchise and has made the situation of the franchise rather more complicated.
Also the obligations of the ex-Bulls players Derrick Rose and Luol Deng as well as the alleged interest in Joakim Noah caused rather mockery and malice, the label of the “Timberbulls” was added for free.
The fact that Thibs, Butler’s closest confidante and most extended arm, now also wants to seek the expanse increases the pressure once again enormously. Superstar trades are long processes, as the drama around Kawhi Leonard in San Antonio showed, but time is pressing.
Already on Monday the training camp starts in Minnesota, the players and Thibs will be asked lots of questions, which probably nobody would like to answer. A similar situation had the Knicks last year, who answered this with the quick trade from Carmelo Anthony to OKC and thus avoided unpleasant demands.
If no trade takes place until then, however, it is also possible that Butler will not appear on Monday and will reiterate his demand. Thus an unpleasant decision could be taken from the Wolves one year in advance.
The Wiggins deal raised the question of whether the team should be formed around Towns or Butler, for both the Wolves would have to pay a hell of a luxury tax. Jimmy Buckets may now have taken the decision off Minnesota, a separation seems inevitable under the current circumstances – perhaps even in a few days.