Tom Thibodeau’s TimberBulls dreams fell apart before they could even really get started thanks to Jimmy Butler’s trade request. Of all the former Bulls that Thibs had brought in to Minnesota over the past two summers, Butler was by far the most impactful on a team’s success in 2018.
Taj Gibson, Derrick Rose, and Luol Deng — likely in that order — offer less than Butler in what they can do now on the basketball court, and without Butler the Wolves’ hopes of reaching the playoffs in consecutive years will take a significant hit. The question is what Minnesota will be able to get for Butler, which, given the situation, will likely be something similar to what Indiana got for Paul George last summer (or what Chicago got for Butler).
That is to say, there likely won’t be any mind-blowing trade packages out there that one will be able to say with certainty that the Wolves are getting full value back for Butler’s talent level. Beyond that, it remains to be seen whether Thibodeau will want the types of players and assets other teams are willing to give him.
Thibodeau is in Year 3 of this Minnesota gig, and as such he’s been through something of a rebuilding process already. As a veteran coach, he won’t want to hit the reset button, and, according to Sean Deveney from Sporting News, it’s possible he chooses to leave his post as coach and GM in Minnesota instead of trading Butler for pieces.
According to multiple league sources, coach Tom Thibodeau has no intention of letting Butler go for young, rebuilding-type pieces. Thibodeau, hotly pursued as a coaching free agent after leaving Chicago in 2015, went to Minnesota because he thought the team would be ready to contend quickly.
Butler, acquired last summer in a trade with the Bulls, had become part of that thought process. Thibodeau has zero interest in taking a step back with Minnesota, even, according to sources, if it means he ultimately parts ways with the team.
“No one expects Tom to coach a 25-win or even 35-win team,” one front-office executive told Sporting News. “Even if he has to agree to dissolve the contract, they’d do that before they go and trade Butler for draft picks.”
If he did choose to leave because the veteran offers for Butler simply weren’t there and ownership was pushing him to make a move before the season, you’d be hard pressed to find too many Wolves fans broken up about things. Despite the team snapping one of the league’s longest postseason droughts last year, there are many in the fan base frustrated with how Thibs has gone about roster construction.
Deveney goes on to note that Thibodeau is most likely to push for a trade that nets Minnesota veteran help that can keep them in the playoff hunt this season, but there won’t be a sure-fire star out there being offered for a year of Butler like there was for Kawhi Leonard this summer. The best opportunity to even come close to recouping Butler’s full value is to make a move like Indiana did, taking a significant risk on a young player that hasn’t tapped into his full potential in hopes that, in a new situation, he can flourish the way Victor Oladipo did.
That is a risky proposition, because if it doesn’t pan out then the trade will look disastrous, but given Butler’s contract situation and apparent desire to be in New York or L.A. next summer, his value on the trade market isn’t especially high. Thibodeau is already reluctant to deal him, but if ownership were to step in and make it clear a deal has to be done before the season to avoid an awkward locker room situation, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could choose to leave as well.
