The trade offers for Jimmy Butler show the extent of the no-win situation the Wolves have backed themselves into

Per Darren Wolfson’s latest podcast, here’s the deals on the table for Jimmy Butler:

• Miami Heat - Goran Dragic/Hassan Whiteside (I have also heard Dion Waiters and Whiteside is an alternative option here)

• Milwaukee Bucks - Eric Bledsoe/Malcolm Brogdon

• Houston Rockets - Eric Gordon/PJ Tucker (this might actually be a one-or-the-other deal)

It’s a pretty underwhelming list. None of them include a single piece that should be a pre-requisite for dealing a superstar player - a young talent with star potential, instant salary cap relief, and multiple first round picks. None of them even include what the Spurs got in return for Kawhi Leonard, who was deal under very similar circumstances - an All-Star currently in his prime.

The only positive long-term asset on the table here is Brogdon, who is, at best, a high end role player. Goran Dragic is very good, but he’s 32 and his fit next to Jeff Teague is suspect. Ditto Eric Bledsoe. Eric Gordon is the best player of the bunch, but is hardly the sort of return you’d get excited about when losing a top 15 player. And call it a personal hunch, but I think Gordon would be immensely unhappy to be dealt here, enough that it would become a locker room distraction.

So of what the Wolves have available to them now, nothing is great. Or even good, really, when the long term consequences are factored in. The Wolves really need to force of of these teams to include a young player with exciting potential, even if it’s a long shot that potential will be fully realized. Justise Winslow, Derrick Jones Jr, Donte DiVincenzo, etc. They should not accept a trade package of just role playing veterans.

Dragic, Bledsoe and Gordon are all on very expensive contracts. None are good enough to push the Wolves beyond what they are now, but neither are they bad enough that the Wolves would be bad enough to have a real chance at a difference maker in the lottery. Accepting one of these trades would lock the Wolves into a borderline playoffs/guaranteed first round exit cycle for the next 3 or 4 years, with no cap space to change course during and no payoff at the end. When age catches up to Dragic, the Wolves will simply be bad again, once more turning to the lottery to try and rebuild around KAT. Except KAT will be 25 or 26 at this point, with 4 years of his career simply wasted, the way almost a decade of Kevin Garnett’s career was wasted under basically an identical situation.

But here’s the problem: the Wolves have no real choice but to accept a trade like one of these anyway. Because of the timeline this is all happening in, failing to execute a trade within the next week or so open the door to an even more disastrous result.

Tom Thibodeau knows his days are numbered. He knows the odds of him still being the head coach and president of the Wolves at this time next year are basically zero. The blame for why the team is in crisis mere weeks before the start of the season rests at his feet. He ignored the signs that Jimmy was unhappy. He ignored Towns’ request for a meeting. Had he been an adult and dealt with this immediately and proactively, the Wolves would have had two months to find a Butler trade, and it would almost certainly be done by now. This is Thibs’ fault.

So he’s on borrowed time, and he knows it, and all he cares about at this point is that his last few however months just don’t completely suck. He doesn’t care about the team’s long term future because he’s not going to be a part of it.

Thus, Thibs has no real desire or incentive to trade Jimmy at all. If all he cares about is winning games between now and April. his best move is to not trade Butler, contractually forcing him to show up and play. Which seems to be what he’s doing by making outrageous offers and counteroffers, like demanding Ben Simmons from the 76ers.

The result of Jimmy being forced to play out the season here could cripple the team for a decade. The locker room would be torn apart by the animosity between Jimmy and Towns and the inevitable “taking sides” that would happen with Thibs and his ex-Bulls (and Towns already feels ‘ganged-up on’ by Thibs and Jimmy). The chaos would turn off the fanbase and humiliate the team among its peers, and the end result would be the same anyway - Jimmy will leave, Thibs will be fired, and the Wolves will be left with not only no assets to build around KAT with, but KAT himself will be deeply bitter towards the team for allowing this to happen (more-so than he already is).

Thus, the Wolves only real choice is to force a Jimmy trade to happen against Thibs’ will, even if it’s a bad trade, thereby forcing Thibs to accept it really is over. Then it will be up to him to decide if he really wants to coach a team destined for the lottery, or if he’s going to walk away.

Thibs’ staring contest with Glen Taylor over the buyout money he’d be owed if fired has already cost the team dearly in reputation among the fanbase and, more importantly, other front offices around the league. But the worst will be yet to come if a resolution to this isn’t reached soon. The team’s future in the Karl-Anthony Towns era is very much at stake here.