Minnesota Timberwolves forward Jimmy Butler has requested a trade after meeting with president and head coach Tom Thibodeau on Tuesday, according to Shams Charania and Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. Butler gave the front office a shortlist of one to three teams for which he would be open to signing an extension, given that he will soon become a free agent in 2019.
Butler was initially scheduled to meet with Thibodeau and general manager Scott Layden in Minnesota, but the meeting took a different tone after the location was changed to Los Angeles within the last 24 hours, a sign that spelled his soon-to-be breakup with his former coach.
Making Thibodeau and Layden come to his summer destination of Los Angeles meant the Timberwolves brass were the ones seeking clarity from Butler, given the trouble brewing with his younger teammates, who didn't display the competitive fire Butler was expecting and acted rather nonchalant during losses, according to reports.
Thibodeau had been reportedly resistant to the idea of trading Butler, seeing him as one of the culture setters of this team, one of the main reasons why he was brought over from the Chicago Bulls on draft night of last year.
Adding forward Luol Deng is now seen as a last-ditch effort to reunite him with him former teammates and convince him that it's worth staying, despite the clear disconnect between him and the duo of Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Towns has an impending max-level extension, which he'll likely now sign before the start of training camp, given that Butler's trade is only a matter of time.
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