The narrative of Jimmy Butler being a bad teammate has been decimated, now that he's led an underdog Miami Heat side all the way to the NBA Finals. It's hard not to look back at his time with the Minnesota Timberwolves, which one could say, where it all started for Butler in terms of allegedly being a cancer. As it turns out, however, he just never saw eye to eye with Minnesota's young stars in Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
After making his mark in the league with the Chicago Bulls, Butler was traded to the Wolves in the summer of 2017. Zach Harper of the Athletic details in a recent story how Butler lost faith in both Towns and Wiggins early on in his time in Minnesota. It all boiled down to how Butler believed the two youngsters were never on the same page as he was in terms of having the utmost desire to win.
Butler had his own opinions, but he also played the role of go-between for the coach and the young players failing to grasp the raspy barks from the sidelines. The work being put in by the veterans familiar with [head coach Tom Thibodeau's] system wasn’t being matched by the young stars the franchise committed to grooming. Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins both worked hard individually, by most accounts. But the concept of “work smarter, not harder” didn’t seem to shine through for them.
When Jimmy Butler arrived in Minnesota, he completely understood the role he needed to play. Despite being named an All-Star in the previous three seasons, he knew that he had to let Towns and Wiggins shine.
Butler slow-played the start of the 2017-18 season. He was the best player on the team, but he knew going into that experience it wasn’t his team. It was Towns’ team. It was Wiggins’ team. Butler was there to show them how to win under Thibodeau. How to end the 14-year playoff drought. How to realize their potential.
Unfortunately, that never came to fruition. In Butler's mind, it was all because Towns and Wiggins were never able to get at the same level as he was. Then, the infamous blow-up in practice happened. It did not look good for Butler at that time, but he knew all along that this was the only way he was going to force his way out of Minnesota.
He wanted to prove Towns and Wiggins didn’t have it, and that they didn’t want to have it. He wanted to prove it to the coach/president of the team, knowing it should force his hand.
True enough, the Wolves traded away Butler not long after, sending him to the Philadelphia 76ers. He never really fit in there as well, but that's a story for another time. What is clear is that Butler is just a different animal compared to Wiggins and Towns, and that trio was destined to fail from the onset.
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