Jimmy Butler to face Minnesota Timberwolves fans after trade request
Friday 19 October 2018 21:08, UK
Despite Golden State Warriors collecting their championship rings and LeBron James making his Lakers debut, the most intriguing moment of the opening week of the NBA season may be still to come.
Minnesota Timberwolves, eighth in the Western Conference last season and not considered championship contenders, play their home opener on Friday against Cleveland Cavaliers, who lost just about all of their relevance with James' departure this summer.
So why is this matchup of interest? Minnesota's four-time All-Star Jimmy Butler is set to play in front of the Wolves supporters having spent the entire off-season trying to force his way out of the franchise.
Butler handed in a trade request amid reported frustration with the work ethic of his younger - and better paid - teammates, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, then missed most of training camp as he awaited a move.
With Butler's contract set to expire at the end of the season, logic suggested the Timberwolves would trade him rather than lose him for nothing, but the team's under-pressure coach Tom Thibodeau seemed willing to take that risk.
No trade was made with the likes of Miami Heat deeming the asking price too high and a frustrated Butler rejoined his teammates days before the start of the season.
He announced his return by reportedly leading the Wolves reserves to victory over the first-unit in an inter-team scrimmage and very vocally reminding everyone present of his importance to the franchise's hopes of success.
With the player unwilling to miss competitive action and Thibodeau keen to have his best performer on the floor when others might have deemed the situation too toxic, Butler played 32 minutes as the Wolves lost their season-opener in San Antonio on Wednesday night.
"Nobody likes to lose. I like the energy that we played with," Butler said after scoring 23 points in the 112-108 defeat. "I think everybody's a little bit rusty, including myself. Everybody missed some easy shots. But we took all the right ones, shared the ball. We guarded pretty well. We'll be all right."
While the players appeared to put any toxicity aside, it remains to be seen whether the Minnesota fans will be as receptive, although Butler doesn't care.
"Sure. Go ahead, boo me. It ain't going to change the way I play," he said. "That's going to make me smile more. So please, come on with it."
The 29-year-old shooting guard probably isn't posturing either - he has often thrived in the face of adversity.
Butler was abandoned by his parents as a teenager before being adopted by a basketball teammate's family. He was not initially recruited out of high school, nor drafted to the NBA until completing his full four years in college.
Chosen with the final first-round pick of the 2011 draft by the Chicago Bulls, coached by Thibodeau at the time, Butler averaged just eight minutes per game in his first season. Even when that went up to 26 the following campaign, he was still seen primarily as a defensive option.
Fast-forward two seasons and Butler had somehow turned himself into a genuine two-way force, earning an All-Star debut before being crowned as the NBA's Most Improved Player.
While the success didn't affect Butler's maniacal work ethic, there were reported incidents in Chicago that suggested an inflation of his ego. A series of confrontations with teammates and coaching staff were surely a factor in the Bulls decision to trade him to Minnesota in the summer of 2017.
In his new job with the Timberwolves, Thibodeau was delighted to snag Butler as Minnesota sought to end the then longest play-off drought in the NBA, which had reached 13 years.
Butler delivered, averaging 22 points per game and adding a much-needed toughness that secured the Wolves the eighth and final playoff spot in the West. They would have likely been seeded higher if he hadn't missed 23 games through injury.
Their win-loss record stood at 37-22 with Butler and 10-13 without him. Meanwhile, Butler's failure to make a full recovery was undoubtedly a factor in Minnesota's 4-1 defeat to the top-seeded Houston Rockets in the opening round of the playoffs.
Butler opted to fly home from Houston separately from the rest of squad at the series conclusion, appearing to have decided his time in Minnesota had come to an end.
Almost six months on, after everything, Butler was on a Timberwolves flight home from Texas, perhaps mellowed by having returned to doing what he loves most.
"I've got 81 games, baby, that's all the matters," Butler said when asked if he expects to remain with Minnesota. "We've got to lock in on today, what tomorrow brings and see where we are at. If that (trade) comes to be, that comes to be, there's nothing I can do about that. But in the meantime, I've got to figure out a way to help us win some games."
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