NBA Trade Rumors: Tom Thibodeau has no interest in trade Jimmy Butler
NBA Trade Rumors: Tom Thibodeau, as you’d expect, has no interest in trading Jimmy Butler. Question is, will that change in the near future?
Well, yeah. It’s exactly what you’d expect.
Why would a head coach, in a league where coaches aren’t given much time to produce results, want to trade his best, and possibly favorite, player on the roster? It doesn’t make much sense, especially considering that Tom Thibodeau was brought in to Minnesota to win. Not rebuild.
"[via Sporting News]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."
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"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."
No matter how you chop it up, trading Jimmy Butler will result in taking a step back overall from this franchise. Even though they were an 8th seed in last year’s playoffs, and lost in convincing fashion to the top-seeded Houston Rockets in the first round, for the most part of last season the Wolves were a top 3 team in the Western Conference.
The only reason why they fell to 8th in the conference was because of a Jimmy Butler injury, which forced him to miss a big chunk of the latter portion of the season.
Bottom line, even though Jimmy B wants out, Thibs is going to do everything in his power to keep him on the roster, no matter how awkward or weird it may be in training camp, especially with everything that has been reported on the matter.
Of course, this could also just be Thibs trying to help management in creating a bigger – and deeper – trade market for Jimmy B. If he is overly willing to make a deal, then opposing teams might not offer their best packages. But, if Thibs comes off as somewhat hesitant on trading Jimmy B, it could force teams to up their offer, resulting in a potential bidding war for the all-star’s services.
Related Story. Los Angeles Clippers should go all-in on acquiring Jimmy Butler. light
With that said, this is still an extremely difficult situation for Tom Thibodeau and the Minnesota Timberwolves. One that has almost always resulted in the team trading the star in getting nothing that compares market value for their asset.