After lighting up the Minnesota Timberwolves' practice in his return earlier this week, Jimmy Butler is not with the team in their preseason trip to Milwaukee.
Via Chris Hine of the StarTribune:
Butler was not with the Timberwolves in Milwaukee as they prepared for their final preseason game, head coach Tom Thibodeau confirmed Friday morning at shootaround.
The official reason given by Thibodeau is that Butler stayed in Minneapolis to “work on his conditioning.”
In the past few weeks, the news has been filled with Butler's desire to be traded out of Minnesota because he had issues with management and some of the team's younger talent, specifically Karl Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
Butler made his return in practice last Wednesday and made sure he made his presence felt. He challenged the starters in the scrimmages and was barking at teammates, coach Tom Thibodeau and general manager Scott Layden before finally walking out of practice.
After that, Butler sat down in an interview with ESPN's Rachel Nichols and essentially confirmed the reports regarding the said practice. In the the interview, he said:
“A lot of it is true. A lot of it is true. But you gotta think, I haven’t played basketball in so long. And I’m so passionate. I love the game, and I don’t do it for any other reason except for to compete and go up against the best and try to prove that I can hang. So, all my emotion came out at one time. Was it the right way to do it? No. But I can’t control that when I’m out there competing. Like, that’s my love of the game. That’s raw me. Me at my finest, me at my purest. That’s what you’re gonna get inside the lines.”
It will be interesting to see if Butler will get traded before the regular season starts as it surely seems that the drama will be a big distraction for a Timberwolves team looking to make it to the playoffs in a stacked Western Conference.
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