Minnesota Timberwolves: Jimmy Butler’s injury is on Thibs

Minnesota Timberwolves star Jimmy Butler is likely out for the remainder of the season, and there’s one specific person who is at fault

Jimmy Butler is likely done for, at the very least, the remainder of the regular season. However, unlike most athletic injuries, there is a direct culprit for what has happened to one of the NBA’s biggest starts.

That culprit is the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Tom Thibodeau is known, for lack of a better phrase, for over working his players. He did it in Chicago, and he’s doing it again with Minnesota. His overworking of players has not only led to injuries to some of the biggest stars under his tutelage, but also losses.

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Minnesota is one of the worst, if not the worst, fourth quarter team in the NBA, and last year it was the same. In the 2016-17 NBA season, Minnesota blew 22 double-digit leads.

Tom Thibodeau runs his players into the ground, on top of losing games in doing so. Thibs plays his starters a ridiculous amount. Minnesota’s bench averages 26 points, which is good for 27th in the NBA. Their bench players also only averages only 13 minutes per game at each position.

Minnesota’s top players are all top 15 in the NBA in minutes per game. Jimmy Butler comes in at third, Andrew Wiggins at No. 8 and Karl-Anthony Towns at No. 13. In additional, all five of Minnesota’s starters are in the top 36 in minutes per game amongst all players in the NBA.

That’s, not good.

This isn’t Thibs’ first go-around with this type of issue. He received the same amount of criticism with the way he managed the minutes of Joakim Noah, Derrick Rose and Luol Deng with the Chicago Bulls – three players who are a shell of themselves.

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Tom Thibodeau basically runs an eight-man rotation, no matter how many games in rapid succession his team plays. Sure, he wins games. But that might have more to do with the amount of talent he has on his rosters. He very well may be a good coach in terms of strategy, but he is not a good coach when it comes to longevity for the modern NBA player.

And Jimmy Butler might be his latest example of that.