Everybody's got Jimmy Butler thoughts. The bellicose Timberwolves star set the internet ablaze on Wednesday with his expletive-filled practice peacocking. Former Wolves star Kevin Garnett spoke at length about the situation, and now Thunder wing, and Butler buddy, Paul George, has spoken up in support:
Here's the entirety of his comments, which appear to mirror most of Butler's talking points with Rachel Nichols:
Jimmy has a very valid point. I’m on Jimmy’s side. It's not coming from a place where he's going against the organization. Jimmy's a guy who his whole career has made it about work. Of him having to grind, scratch and claw to get to where he's at. And then he sees the potential he has around him, you know, he just wants guys to match that. Because if guys are skilled and have that "it" like [Karl-Anthony Towns] has, like Andrew Wiggins has, they have that "it" that a lot of guys don't have. Now they have to match it with what Jimmy's bringing to the table. I'm all for what Jimmy's trying to do over there. I talked to Jimmy a little bit on it. It's not coming from a bad place. Jimmy's not going against the organization. He wants the best for the organization, and he's trying to bring it out everything for that organization to get to where it want to get to.
We're worn down by this whole thing, so the Wolves must be exhausted. The public way Jimmy's shamed them since asking for a trade might actually lower his trade value, and as KG commented, he might not really have the juice to demand a trade in the first place. According to Butler, he voiced his desire for a trade less than a week after last season ended. If that's the case, Tom Thibodeau is the real culprit behind this whole soap opera. The perception of Thibodeau as a grizzled hobbit who lives to watch film and strategize X's and O's, conflicts with all the fireworks we've seen over the last week. He could easily have squelched them by trading Jimmy to Miami.
Many think owner Glen Taylor should just fire Thibs, but we understand why the whole ordeal has reached a bit of a stalemate. Should Thibs get canned, the Wolves would still be on the hook for the rest of the five-year, $40 million deal he signed in the spring of 2016. He hasn't even coach the second year of that deal, which is probably why he's comfortable holding firm on his desire to keep Jimmy, even if his presence tears the team apart from the inside.
