How did Tom Thibodeau's Wolves end with Jimmy Butler wanting out?
Per @JonKrawczynski and The Athletic, Jimmy Butler has asked Tom Thibodeau and Scott Layden for a trade.
This is the culmination of a long offseason of discontent (a word I use very loosely in this circumstance) between basically everyone in the Timberwolves organization, but specifically between Jimmy and Karl-Anthony Towns. I do not know the exact nature of their feud, but it is not - repeat NOT - primarily about basketball. Consider: the problem came up seemingly overnight after the season ended after no substantial reports of issues between them during the season. It was immediately vicious in nature, and has resulted in Jimmy abjectly refusing to step foot in Minnesota ever since.
If it is the case that there is an intense, personal rift between the two - which, for what it's worth, explains basically everything that has happened, if you buy into it even for theory's sake - then a trade demand by one or the other was probably the only realistic outcome. I have a hard time seeing Jimmy and KAT ever sharing a locker room, much less a court.
I think there are two distinct and very divergent possibilites for the Wolves now.
The first is that Jimmy is traded quickly. As in, within the week. Training camp begins in just 5 days, and given that Jimmy would not fly in even to meet with Thibs when he supposedly has to be here in a week anyway, that suggests to me that, if he's still on the roster come Monday, he will simply be a no-show at camp. That sounds like a situation no one in the organization wants to deal with on media day.
The second possibility is much more aggrivating, because it plays to type for Thibs. Let me explain.
The max contract offer was made to KAT back in the second week of July. He obviously hasn't signed it. We know that KAT was asking for a face to face meeting with Thibs before signing - a request that, by all accounts, Thibs has summarily ignored. And then just this week, Shams confirmed that KAT would not sign the max deal until there was some sort of resolution about Jimmy's status, which it now appears to mean simply whether he'd still be on the roster or not.
[UPDATE 4:15 pm 9/19/18: @DWolfsonKSTP has verified on ESPN1500 Radio that part of KAT’s conditions for signing the max contract is for Jimmy to be off the roster. This all but confirms that the issue between him and Jimmy is personal, not professional.]
Given all that, it's probably safe to assume that whatever is going on between the two was already in full swing at the time the max contract was put on the table. This means that Thibs either didn't know about what was happening - a pretty implausable scenario for a President of Basketball Operations who sees Jimmy as a surrogate son - or that he did know and, like KAT's meeting requests, has been intetnionally ignoring it all summer. This would line up with what we've seen of his behavior already - dismissive of things he simply doesn't want to deal with.
I believe - and I want to stress that this is mostly speculation on my part - that Thibs knew whatever is going on with Jimmy and KAT would be really bad, and that because it involved Jimmy, he didn't know how to process a solution that wouldn't cost him his guy. So he simply chose to ignore it in hopes it would go away. That's why this has been left to boil out of control all summer rather than being proactively addressed in early July when it probably should have been. Thibs puts loyalty above all else, including, at times, sound reasoning. This would seem to be one of those times.
[UPDATE 5:15 pm 9/21/18: @JonKrawczynski has now both written and put on Twitter that there is strong evidence Thibs was indeed informed about all of this early on. This is probably no later than the second week of July.
Given this, I now feel confident enough in the timeline of events I know to publish. As best I understand it:
- Last week of June/first week of July:
An extremely personal conflict erupts between Towns and Butler. I think we’ve all seen speculation on what that conflict is. I won’t comment on that here except to reaffirm it obviously is personal in nature, not professional.
Joe Cowley releases that hit piece on Towns, with clearly false information about KAT as fed to him by Jimmy’s agent, Bernie Lee. I now strongly believe this was a pre-emptive attempt by Jimmy and Bernie to anger KAT so much that he’d demand a trade before this conflict was made public.
- Second week of July
Thibs delivers a max contract offer to KAT via his agent (I want to stress there was no personal contact made in this. Thibs did not reach out to KAT himself)
KAT refuses to sign, informs Thibs of his grievances on official team channels, and requests a sit-down meeting with Thibs and Layden to discuss. No reply.
- Third week of July
Still no reply.
- Fourth week of July
Still no reply.
- First week of August
Still no reply.
- Second week of August
Still no reply.
- Third week of August
Multiple requests for a meeting have now been sent. Still no reply.
- Last week of August
KAT gives up on getting a response from Thibs. He and his agents go directly to Glen and lay everything on the table. A “me or him [Jimmy]” demand is made to Glen at this time.
- First or second week of September
Glen decides he has no choice but to step in personally, and forces Thibs to arrange a meeting with Jimmy (not clear if Glen tried to force Thibs to meet with KAT as well at this time)
- Third week of September
Thibs and Jimmy meet. Jimmy makes his trade demand and it is made public.
Bonfire
I believe it is clear now that Thibs did indeed know about all this basically from the start, and that he has been intentionally ignoring it all summer]
This then offers a very uncomfortable possibility that Thibs will simply dig his heels in and try to ride this out. Possibly without Jimmy showing up. Possibly with KAT not signing his extension - remember, the deadline is only three weeks away.
Either way, Thibs is now in a no-win situation. Not only is Jimmy his dude, but his job is tied to winning games, and a lot of them at that. Jimmy is a top 10-15 player when healthy, and trading him with no leverage for a great return will only hurt the team win the win/loss column. Conversely, Thibs cannot solve this by trading Towns instead, as Glen Taylor has strongly implied he will fire Thibs before losing KAT. Thibs is faced with either trading his guy - which in his mind is tantamount to treason - and trying to win with a lesser team headlined by a player he doesn't particularly like and who feels has been bullied by Thibs all last season, or refusing to make a trade and putting the team at high risk of complete detonation over a scandal that is no longer hidden from the public.
KAT refusing to sign the extension and demanding a trade would be unprecedented, but this situation itself is fairly unprecedented as it is. The possibility cannot be ruled out.
The Wolves are now paying the consequences of not dealing with a serious problem in a timely and adult manner. And from trying to obscure what has really been going on from both the parties involved and us as fans. Thibs has always maintained intentional, practiced silence on the going-ons of the locker room, but in problem situations, that tends to just make things worse. As legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward said about the Watergate scandal, "Let the silence suck out the truth." That is what has happened here.
