Butler requests trade...

[thedoper]

The idea that Glen should be making trades is totally ridiculous. Don't we have enough evidence to clearly show that he is the worst owner in sports? Did he care about the long term health of the franchise when he fell asleep for 13 years before Flip woke him out of his coma? Glen needs to have a basketball person make a basketball trade if he cares about the franchise.

[Lipoli390]

Glen Taylor needs to stay out of all things basketball personnel related. He's pretty obviously not savvy enough nor qualified to make these kinds of moves, which is okay because that's not his job. Stay in your lane, Glen. Either let Thibs do his job or fire him and hire a competent replacement, and let him do the job. In no way, shape, or form should the owner be negotiating trades.

I agree with you in principal, Cam, but the reality is that many (if not most) big NBA transactions are at least started by owners, not their employees. These guys didn't get to be billoinaires by letting their subordinates make the big decisions. Obviously Thibs knows a lot more about basketball than Glen, just like Donnie Nelson knows a lot more about basketball than Mark Cuban. But that doesn't mean Glen and Cuban are going to stay out of the way. They will listen to their GMs and let them make the day to day decisions, but when it comes to something as momentous as a Butler deal or whether to give a player a max contract or not, you better believe they are going to be in the middle of the deal. And in a way it makes sense. The GM is focused on short term success and keeping his job. The owner is focused on maximizing his investment, and generally will take a longer view. Ideally both the owner and the GM will be involved in big decisions, because that combines a long-term view with basketball acumen. But according to media reports, Thibs instincts about Butler are good for Thibs, but not for the franchise...so Glen has to be involved. You're right that he should just fire him if he doesn't think he's doing his job, and I think he would if he had a suitable candidate lined up to replace him. But until he does, he has to be looking over Thibs' shoulder, or even taking his place, throughout this entire Butler saga...it's too important to let Thibs screw it up.

LST --

I think your analysis is spot on. However, I come back to Cam's point and agree with him that Glen should fire Thibodeau and rely on someone else to pursue and execute a deal for Butler. As Cam noted, Glen is not savvy or qualified enough to rely on for this. Even though other owners can go directly to Taylor with proposals, my concern is that we can't trust trust Glen to evaluate those proposals.

I'd like to believe Glen would replace Thibodeau if he had a suitable replacement lined up. But even if only on an interim basis, he should have already found someone to take over for Thibodeau. It strikes me that Glen must have zero confidence in Layden, otherwise, Glen would have simply fired Thibodeau, elevated Layden to PBO on an interim basis and had Scott take care of the Butler trade. By the way, I'm not surprised by Glen's apparent lack of confidence in Layden. Listening to Layden and recalling his record as PBO for the Knicks, I don't think there is much going on above his shoulders. But there has to be someone out there Glen could hire on an interim basis and pair with Layden to take over for now.

The reason to fire Thibodeau now goes beyond not trusting Glen to evaluate and decide on proposals coming from other teams. Even if Glen could be relied on to make good judgments on proposals that come in, we don't have anyone in the organization to rely on to come up with and sell realistic, smart proposals and counter-proposals. I don't think Thibodeau can be trusted to fashion proposals or counter-proposals that would serve the best long-term interests of the franchise. Why is that? Well, you mentioned that owners need to intervene sometimes because GMs are focused more on the short-term horizon to preserve their jobs. That dynamic is a hundred times worse with Thibodeau right now because he's also head coach AND his hold on that head coaching job is particularly tenuous at the moment, making him even more desperate than most head coaches to win this season potentially at the expense of future seasons. Even worse, Thibodeau's judgment seems particularly compromised when it comes to Jimmy -- both overvaluing Jimmy as a trade asset and clinging unrealistically to the notion that Jimmy might stay. As a result, we're in a largely one-directional situation with other teams bringing their proposals to the Wolves (Glen) but no creative, intelligent, realistic and reliable proposals flowing back the other way.

I'm over Butler being a jerk. I'm also over Thibodeau's misjudgment in trading for Butler. And I'm even over Thibodeau's failure to take his head out of the sand and deal with this situation as it was brewing as long as 5 months ago. Now it's on Glen to fire Thibodeau and assemble an executive team, even if just on any interim basis, to make the most out of the current situation. Continuing to rely on Thibodeau while simultanously encouraging other teams to bypass Thibodeau and go directly to Glen Taylor strikes me as a prescription for disaster.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I'm largely in agreement with Cam, Doper and Lip about the way Butler should be traded...I would also prefer that the transaction be handled by a knowledgeable basketball exec with the best interests of the franchise in mind. And that's not Glen, and unfortunately that's not Thibs either...one is not traditionally capable, and one appears to be ignoring the reality of the situation due to self-interest. So I agree that firing Thibs and immediately hiring a capable POBO would be optimal. But I understand why Glen doesn't want to rush a decision about Thibs' replacement, while also not wanting to let any Butler trade opportunities get away if they are out there. So that forces me to choose between two guys driving the trade process...Thibs and Glen. Thibs reportedly knows personnel (although some of his POBO moves belie this image), but if reports about his not taking trade calls and expecting Butler to return are true, he is not living in the real world and only has his own interests at heart. Glen is not a professional GM, but has as much basketball knowledge as most of us on this board being a smart guy and having been involved closely with the game for decades, and I would trust most of us (and therefore, even Glen) to make a better long-term decision than Thibs.

By all means, fire Thibs today and hire a capable POBO if one is available. But absent that move, I don't want Thibs anywhere near a Butler transaction.

[Monster]

A couple things to add to the conversation:

1. Thibs and Layden are probably a package deal. That's been reported and quite frankly if you fire Thibs everyone knows you aren't keeping Layden anyway so teams know they are dealing with a lame duck GM which probably isn't what you want to do when negotiating a Butler deal and heading into a season days away.

2. I have no doubt that the dynamic between Glen and Thibs and Layden is FAAAAAAAR from ideal. I also think the idea that Glen and Thibs are as far apart in their intentions as reported is probably not as dire as Thibs going rouge and trying to get Jimmy to stay behind Glen's back etc. Having said that do I think Glen would make a move if there was some no-brainer guys to take over the franchise? I'd guess it's likely but there is no such scenario so everyone is likely doing their best to make this work at least for now.

3. Glen or pretty much any owner being involved would be the case for any trade of this magnitude. How involved is Glen at this point? I don't think we know for sure really. I'm sure he is absolutely wanting to stay up to date with the process and likely communicating he wants to get this thing rolling. Glen isn't the best owner but he has been through these types of processes before. This isn't his first rodeo. I don't want to give him too much credit (doesn't deserve it) but he likely knows this is going to take a few days even if he wants to done ASAP.