Jimmy Butler still wants out of Minnesota despite showing up at practice (and basically wrecking everything and everyone) on Wednesday.
Butler showed up to practice, called out just about everyone from the front office to the coaching staff to the young stars he’s long butted heads with, and then beat the starters with third-stringers before storming out. Some players apparently loved it, others, like Karl-Anthony Towns who bore the brunt of Butler’s wrath, with Jimmy going so far as to guard Towns in scrimmages and call him soft, couldn’t believe it.
No matter what it was, Butler got what he wanted: a reaction. He put the franchise on notice that, so long as he’s still on the team, he’s going to do this and make sure everyone’s aware of his presence, good or bad. When he sat down with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols on Wednesday afternoon, he confirmed that “a lot” of the reports were true and he did get into it with Towns, but claimed he was just being “brutally honest.”
Later in that interview on SportsCenter, Butler’s issues with the lack of honesty he feels he hears from those in the Wolves organization came up again, as he explained why he doesn’t think the problems he has with the teams will be fixed.
Nichols: Should people think because you were back in practice, this is fixed or on its way to be fixed?
Butler: I think people think that. I would think that too, but it’s not. It’s not fixed. It could be. It could be, but do I think so? No. Because you gotta be honest. You have to be honest. Do I think so? No, because I’m being honest with you. But is everybody going to be honest? No, no. Everybody’s not going to be honest. Like, if you go and say, ‘Which one of y’all told what Jimmy said today in practice?’ They’ll be like, ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I don’t care, ain’t nothing we can do about it now, but be honest. That’s it. I just want everybody to be happy. I want to win. Sorry if I go about it the wrong way. I do apologize. I just want to win.
Butler’s doing a tremendous job of getting the message he wants to be out there to the public, and he makes it clear in this interview that he doesn’t think his style can mesh with the stars on the Wolves.
He would later go on to explain that, in his version at least, Towns challenged him in practice and so that’s how they went at it, and he explained that Towns is the best player on the team and Wiggins is the most talented, but his complaint is neither plays hard enough when compared to him.
