Jimmy Butler Wants Out of Minnesota
Jimmy Butler has requested a trade from the Minnesota Timberwolves, league sources tell me and @JonKrawczynski. Butler has given Minnesota a list of one-to-three teams with whom he’s open to signing extension, in anticipation of trade.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 19, 2018
Minnesota’s Jimmy Butler has three preferred destinations for a trade, league sources tell ESPN: The Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks. Those three teams have max cap space to sign Butler as a free agent in July.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 19, 2018
After tons of speculation regarding the future of Timberwolves SG Jimmy Butler, we have finally come to a conclusion; He wants out of Minnesota.
This could potentially be the second straight off-season where we see Butler get traded. I personally feel like this time around, it’s going to come with a price. Why should we have any problem placing Jimmy Butler in the same category as guys like Dwight Howard? That category of course, being bad locker room guys.
Butler’s claimed “beef” with the players in that Minnesota locker room is that they don’t “work hard enough” for his standards. It was the exact same thing when he was in Chicago. This makes me seriously start to wonder if this is the type of guy I’d even want on my roster, regardless of talent. We’ve seen over the past few years the effect that this type of mentality does to guy’s career. Dwight Howard for example, who I think is still up there with some of the more talented centers in the NBA, has been on four different teams each of the last four seasons. If you are a bad locker room presence, you won’t stick with one team. Plain and simple. This isn’t MyCareer in NBA 2K, you can’t just request a trade every year after you get bored with one team.
As far as landing spots go, New York, Brooklyn, and LA (Clippers) make a ton of sense. All three of those teams have big contracts that they can match up with Butler’s salary, as well as the expected cap space to extend Jimmy when his contract is up next Summer. And if there’s any truth to the Kyrie-to-New York rumors, why wouldn’t Butler want to go out there? It would put him in a perfect position to try and lure Irving to play with him once he hits the market next Summer.
If Jimmy Butler wants to win a championship at some point during his career, this is absolutely the right move for him. With Tom Thibodeau running the show, trying to re-create his former Chicago Bulls squads and what-not, there’s no chance in hell Minnesota is getting out of the first round of the playoffs any time soon. It’s definitely going to come with that price of a bad rap though, which is something Butler might just have to live with.
P.S. There is no shot in hell Butler winds up with the Celtics. I know Danny Ainge loves to throw his name in the ring with guys like this, but there’s just no way he does it here. Our team is fine the way it is, and I think Ainge believes that just as much as I do.
-Nick Cherico (@CouchGuyCherico)
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