The Minnesota Timberwolves entered the 2018-19 campaign with Jimmy Butler on the roster, but there wasn't a soul on the planet who thought Butler would make it through the season with the team.
It was obvious that Butler wasn't too fond of Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins and also had issues with the coaching staff and front office, all of which he made blatantly clear during an infamous practice back in October.
The Timberwolves eventually traded Butler in November, and the Philadelphia 76ers happily took him on, sending back Robert Covington and Dario Saric in the deal.
Everyone knew Minnesota wasn't going to get great value for Butler, as the Wolves had virtually no leverage and due to the fact that Butler was set to be a free agent this summer, but the Timberwolves took what they could get and freed up their locker room of a gigantic problem.
As for the 76ers? They sacrificed some depth and some shooting, but they landed the third star that they desperately needed to have any chance of seriously contending in the Eastern Conference.
So, here we are, four months later, and we still must ask the question: who really won the Butler trade?
It's one of those questions that doesn't really have a definitive answer.
Towns is playing phenomenal basketball in Minnesota and certainly looks a heck of a lot more comfortable sans Butler, while Jimmy Butler has certainly made Philadelphia a better team.
But is it one of those deals that is just going to go by the wayside when all is said and done?
As stated earlier, Butler will be a free agent in July, and the general consensus is that he will not be returning to the Sixers next season. Maybe he surprises everyone and re-signs, but the prevailing thought is that Butler will go somewhere like the Los Angeles Clippers and join another incoming star like Kawhi Leonard or Kevin Durant in the process.
Plus, there have been reports that Butler has been a rather divisive figure in the 76ers' locker room, which is not the least bit shocking. So, let's say Philadelphia loses early in the playoffs again and Butler bolts over the summer. Was it really worth it?
What I will say is that it's not like the Sixers gave up too much in the Butler deal. The Tobias Harris trade is another story entirely, but Butler? Covington and Saric are decent role players, but they are definitely replaceable.
So, even if Jimmy Butler tears apart the locker room between now and the playoffs and then walks over the summer, it's not such a big deal. The 76ers weren't going anywhere before Butler arrived, and if they don't go anywhere with him on the team, nothing really changes.
For the Timberwolves? They tried to hit a home run with Butler by trading for him on draft night in 2017, sending Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn and a pick that turned out to be Lauri Markkanen to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for the polarizing star. Obviously, it didn't work out, and I'm sure Minnesota would love to have Markkanen right about now.
So, if anything, the Wolves really lost this deal when you think about all of the circumstances that led to this point, as they essentially had to treat Butler as a sunk cost when they dealt him.
Heck, the true winners in the end are the Bulls, as they were able to nab Markkanen. The jury is still out on LaVine and Dunn, but Markkanen looks like a keeper for sure, and Chicago doesn't have a headache in the locker room anymore.
If you are looking at this from the Timberwolves' perspective, you have to go to the root, and the root was draft night 2017.
Again, I understand what Minnesota was trying to do. After all, this was a franchise that had not made the playoffs in 13 years at the time, so the Wolves were just desperate. They thought that adding Butler to Towns and Wiggins would elevate them to another level. They were wrong.
Did Butler make them better for one year? Sure, but I think a lot of people felt the Timberwolves were getting Kawhi when they were actually getting a poor man's version of him. Butler isn't so good where he can take a non-playoff team into contender status by himself, and that is what Minnesota seemed to be hoping Butler would do.
It didn't work, and actually, Butler kind of made things worse, as his presence clearly had a negative effect on Towns and Wiggins (especially Towns), which was why the Timberwolves had no choice but to ship him out of there.
In the end, the 76ers almost surely aren't going to be winning an NBA title this season, and the Timberwolves will keep trudging along in search of another true (and compatible) star to put alongside of Towns.
Until then, it's the Bulls—not Philly nor Minnesota—that are having the last laugh.
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