Minnesota Sports Forum

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I would argue that Taj was our 3rd most impactful player last year after Butler and KAT. I think he added at least a couple wins for us over and beyond the prior year, with Butler adding the rest. I was not a fan of paying that much for Taj at the time, but he absolutely earned every penny of that contract last year.

That being said, he and Teague are 2/5ths of our starting lineup this pre-season and deserve their fair share of the blame for our pathetic start. Hopefully they can do better when the regular season starts.

My point, Q, was that paying Taj $14 million and Teague $19 million was a mistake if the alternative to those contracts was a restructured deal with Butler to lock him in for a period of years. As I read Monster's point, it seemed as if Butler wanted and maybe even expected such a deal. I see no reason not to give him that deal other than luxury tax concerns, which could have been mitigated by forgoing those two big contracts. I thought the Teague contract was a bad one in isolation. The Gibson contract only looks bad if it prevented us from locking in Butler over the long term and avoiding the circus we're seeing today.

I was on YouTube watching something else and the lengthy clip where Butler talked about this came up so I watched it again. Maybe Butler is lying or not telling the whole truth or somewhat delusional but it does seem like he feels like he should have been taken care of when it comes to his contract. Someone on realgm brought up that his last deal ended up being lower than maybe I could have been. Let's be honest however you see Butler he was on a bargain contract for the 2 years when he was acquired. 20 million for a top 20 player even if he misses 20 games a year is still good. Crazy good? Maybe not but good. It seems Butler wanted a renegotiation when he was acquired. I didn't really realize that was an option or that it would make sense to do so. Even if we weren't at this ridiculously bad spot doing that renegotiation makes some sense even if last year and this year you have to pay him 10 million more because then you could have him locked in for what 4 years total? You don't have to worry about giving him a terrible contract after this season. You probably pay a bit less for 2019 and 2020. Yes it would have cost signing one good player like Teague or Taj (maybe both) but whatever money they would have had left over would have attracted someone left that would have been very excited to be a starting PG for a team that only had x amount of dollars left. If this is really part of Butler's problem...I kinda get it. He should probably be more patient but I get a bit where he is coming from. Think about This. Forget what Wiggins and Towns is making...Jeff Teague made about 1 million less than Butler last year and what they are slated to make this year. Jimmy likes Teague and probably has zero problem with Jeff but yeah ok.

Again if Thins thought this was more of Butler's problem I can see how he thought he was gonna smooth it out because...they win this year and they can pay Jimmy a boat load of money and it's fine. I'm reading into things here but it does seem like a few miscalculations here. I'm not sure anyone saw Jimmy going quite this far though but maybe he is because it's the only way he sees Thibs giving him up. Whoever suggested we need to get outside and do something is right I'm out. lol

I just got back from outside. :) Wanted to say that also just watched the entire Butler interview. I had the same take-away as you, Monster. And like you, I had no ideal renegotiating his contract was an option last summer when we acquired him. But listening really carefully to that interview, it seemed pretty clear to me that Butler's beef really is primarily with the front office. Of course, that helps explain why he was yelling at Layden and Thibodeau in that no infamous practice a couple days ago. It's all coming together. Wow, I thought Thibodeau and Layden simply screwed up with Butler thing earlier this summer. Looks like they screwed things up royally a year ago.

The point of trading for Butler was to have him around for the long term while still in his prime. Last summer, when he was excited to be here and we had plenty of cap room was the time to lock him in for an additional 3-5 years. Instead, we used $19 million to sign Teague when that money could have gone towards locking in Butler. Meanwhile, the Pacers signed a better three-point shooting PG named Collison for $10 million per year. And imagine if the Wolves hadn't given Wiggins the extension. No other NBA team would have offered him a max deal this summer, so we could have simply matched a more reasonable deal if we wanted to keep him or let him go and put the additional cap space to good use.

This is why you don't hand over the top executive position in the basketball department to someone who's never even worked in a professional sports front office, much less an NBA one, and who's never been an executive of anything. That's why we shouldn't replace Thibodeau as PBO with a Chauncey Billups type. I can see him or someone similar replacing Scott Layden in his role, but not running our basketball operations department.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I would argue that Taj was our 3rd most impactful player last year after Butler and KAT. I think he added at least a couple wins for us over and beyond the prior year, with Butler adding the rest. I was not a fan of paying that much for Taj at the time, but he absolutely earned every penny of that contract last year.

That being said, he and Teague are 2/5ths of our starting lineup this pre-season and deserve their fair share of the blame for our pathetic start. Hopefully they can do better when the regular season starts.

My point, Q, was that paying Taj $14 million and Teague $19 million was a mistake if the alternative to those contracts was a restructured deal with Butler to lock him in for a period of years. As I read Monster's point, it seemed as if Butler wanted and maybe even expected such a deal. I see no reason not to give him that deal other than luxury tax concerns, which could have been mitigated by forgoing those two big contracts. I thought the Teague contract was a bad one in isolation. The Gibson contract only looks bad if it prevented us from locking in Butler over the long term and avoiding the circus we're seeing today.

I was on YouTube watching something else and the lengthy clip where Butler talked about this came up so I watched it again. Maybe Butler is lying or not telling the whole truth or somewhat delusional but it does seem like he feels like he should have been taken care of when it comes to his contract. Someone on realgm brought up that his last deal ended up being lower than maybe I could have been. Let's be honest however you see Butler he was on a bargain contract for the 2 years when he was acquired. 20 million for a top 20 player even if he misses 20 games a year is still good. Crazy good? Maybe not but good. It seems Butler wanted a renegotiation when he was acquired. I didn't really realize that was an option or that it would make sense to do so. Even if we weren't at this ridiculously bad spot doing that renegotiation makes some sense even if last year and this year you have to pay him 10 million more because then you could have him locked in for what 4 years total? You don't have to worry about giving him a terrible contract after this season. You probably pay a bit less for 2019 and 2020. Yes it would have cost signing one good player like Teague or Taj (maybe both) but whatever money they would have had left over would have attracted someone left that would have been very excited to be a starting PG for a team that only had x amount of dollars left. If this is really part of Butler's problem...I kinda get it. He should probably be more patient but I get a bit where he is coming from. Think about This. Forget what Wiggins and Towns is making...Jeff Teague made about 1 million less than Butler last year and what they are slated to make this year. Jimmy likes Teague and probably has zero problem with Jeff but yeah ok.

Again if Thins thought this was more of Butler's problem I can see how he thought he was gonna smooth it out because...they win this year and they can pay Jimmy a boat load of money and it's fine. I'm reading into things here but it does seem like a few miscalculations here. I'm not sure anyone saw Jimmy going quite this far though but maybe he is because it's the only way he sees Thibs giving him up. Whoever suggested we need to get outside and do something is right I'm out. lol

Yup, i think him not getting an extension is at the heart of the disconnect between butler and minnesota.

Wolves, obviously, can try and convince
@JimmyButler
to stay. But here's what he told me in February: "I mean, in the most humble way possible, if they don't take care of me this summer, I think the summer after that, I'm'a end up playing somewhere." The "else" was left unsaid

Wolves would need to shed 30 million this offseason and take back no salary in order to be able to give jimmy that extension. So, basically Wiggins for nothing or 2 of dieng, taj, teague for nothing. Both options arent really possible.

Before the deadline, i think we only needed to get 15 million under the cap (diengs contract)to give jimmy that renegotiation and extension which was easier to do, but thibs didnt do it or taylor didnt sign off on it.

crazy-canuck wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:I would argue that Taj was our 3rd most impactful player last year after Butler and KAT. I think he added at least a couple wins for us over and beyond the prior year, with Butler adding the rest. I was not a fan of paying that much for Taj at the time, but he absolutely earned every penny of that contract last year.

That being said, he and Teague are 2/5ths of our starting lineup this pre-season and deserve their fair share of the blame for our pathetic start. Hopefully they can do better when the regular season starts.

My point, Q, was that paying Taj $14 million and Teague $19 million was a mistake if the alternative to those contracts was a restructured deal with Butler to lock him in for a period of years. As I read Monster's point, it seemed as if Butler wanted and maybe even expected such a deal. I see no reason not to give him that deal other than luxury tax concerns, which could have been mitigated by forgoing those two big contracts. I thought the Teague contract was a bad one in isolation. The Gibson contract only looks bad if it prevented us from locking in Butler over the long term and avoiding the circus we're seeing today.

I was on YouTube watching something else and the lengthy clip where Butler talked about this came up so I watched it again. Maybe Butler is lying or not telling the whole truth or somewhat delusional but it does seem like he feels like he should have been taken care of when it comes to his contract. Someone on realgm brought up that his last deal ended up being lower than maybe I could have been. Let's be honest however you see Butler he was on a bargain contract for the 2 years when he was acquired. 20 million for a top 20 player even if he misses 20 games a year is still good. Crazy good? Maybe not but good. It seems Butler wanted a renegotiation when he was acquired. I didn't really realize that was an option or that it would make sense to do so. Even if we weren't at this ridiculously bad spot doing that renegotiation makes some sense even if last year and this year you have to pay him 10 million more because then you could have him locked in for what 4 years total? You don't have to worry about giving him a terrible contract after this season. You probably pay a bit less for 2019 and 2020. Yes it would have cost signing one good player like Teague or Taj (maybe both) but whatever money they would have had left over would have attracted someone left that would have been very excited to be a starting PG for a team that only had x amount of dollars left. If this is really part of Butler's problem...I kinda get it. He should probably be more patient but I get a bit where he is coming from. Think about This. Forget what Wiggins and Towns is making...Jeff Teague made about 1 million less than Butler last year and what they are slated to make this year. Jimmy likes Teague and probably has zero problem with Jeff but yeah ok.

Again if Thins thought this was more of Butler's problem I can see how he thought he was gonna smooth it out because...they win this year and they can pay Jimmy a boat load of money and it's fine. I'm reading into things here but it does seem like a few miscalculations here. I'm not sure anyone saw Jimmy going quite this far though but maybe he is because it's the only way he sees Thibs giving him up. Whoever suggested we need to get outside and do something is right I'm out. lol

Yup, i think him not getting an extension is at the heart of the disconnect between butler and minnesota.

Wolves, obviously, can try and convince
@JimmyButler
to stay. But here's what he told me in February: "I mean, in the most humble way possible, if they don't take care of me this summer, I think the summer after that, I'm'a end up playing somewhere." The "else" was left unsaid

Wolves would need to shed 30 million this offseason and take back no salary in order to be able to give jimmy that extension. So, basically Wiggins for nothing or 2 of dieng, taj, teague for nothing. Both options arent really possible.

Before the deadline, i think we only needed to get 15 million under the cap (diengs contract)to give jimmy that renegotiation and extension which was easier to do, but thibs didnt do it or taylor didnt sign off on it.

Yep. It's becoming pretty clear. I doubt Taylor prohibited Thibodeau from renegotiating and extending Butler. That wouldn't make sense given that Taylor signed off on the Butler deal and went on to sign off on every other move Thibodeau made that summer. My sense is that Thibodeau was intent on signing Teague and Taj. As a result, extending Butler would have set the team up for certain luxury tax hell starting this year with Wiggins' salary kicking in. Taylor probably wouldn't have signed off on that and I wouldn't blame him. Thibodeau gave a bad deal to Gorgui the previous year. Then he felt the need to trade Ricky and paid a lot more than he should have to replace him with Teague. He overpaid to get Taj, although I can overlook that one given how good Taj was last season. Then he signed off on giving Wiggins the max extension. All those decisions were bad basketball and business decisions (except maybe signing Taj). And those decisions effectively precluded a deal for Butler that could have avoided this mess. Obviously, I'm speculating. But it sure seems as if that's darn close to what happened. Ugh.

Even if Jimmy is upset about the not getting paid earlier...there is no way that's all it is though. If he was happy with how everything else was going he would be all staying here. I can't blame him to some extent for not being happy with some other things either but it's not just that money though. Oh and I went outside for a couple hours and now I'm back.

My guess?

1. He didn't get the renegotiation and extension.

2. Chicago traded him because they didn't want to give him that supermax. So, when he didn't get that contract r & e, he took it out on kat and wiggs out of jealousy and frustration. He took it as a slap in the face and took all his ill will towards chicago and dumped it on minnesota.

3. He simply doesn't like minnesota. Jimmy loves the hollywood lifestyle.

Jimmy isn't stupid. He's crazy, but he isn't stupid. We are a 50 win team even with a crappy teague, a bust in wiggins, and a heartless kat. It's ugly, but effective as a group that is mostly held back by poor coaching. Jimmy wanted to win, he'd be staying. It's all about that paper and respect. I don't think he hates kat and wiggins, i think he might actually like them.

monsterpile wrote:Even if Jimmy is upset about the not getting paid earlier...there is no way that's all it is though. If he was happy with how everything else was going he would be all staying here. I can't blame him to some extent for not being happy with some other things either but it's not just that money though. Oh and I went outside for a couple hours and now I'm back.

Yeah I just don't think it's all money either. While I agree it's a big part of it, I think it has a good bit to do with KAT & Wiggins. Between his belief they aren't working as hard as they could (he's out working them essentially) and they are the ones getting paaaaiiiid. I think if their new deals were about what he's making now, he'd be happier with his offer, etc. Hard to truly know though with this whole circus.

It's worth going back to what Bobby Marks said on Wolfson's podcast that of the Wolves did do a renegotiation it would have limited them in who they could have signed. Butler can't say that the Wolves didn't try and put a winning team around him. You can say Teague and Taj May have gotten too much money or there were better options when it comes to value etc but those guys were playoff vets. You would think Butler would have supported and respected that to some extent.

It also seems clear to me there is something else going on when he supposedly told Thibs how he felt 4 days after the last playoff game. That can't be just about a contract right? I mean he hasn't even been here 12 months and he wants out? Thibs drafts a Jimmy Butler type in Okogir and he stays away? We are back to him being a dick.

As for Wiggins whether or not he gets signed to his max deal didn't really have much effect on Butler as Marks points out. His cap hold this summer would have been 22 million so that wouldn't have opened up much space. As for if anyone would have offered him a max deal...the Bulls and Kings were willing to pay Lavine plenty of money coming off an injury marred season. I'm guessing Wiggins would have gotten more money than that for 4 years. I think the only real savings would be only paying him 4 years instead of 5...if he ends up not being a high level starter which...we know where we are at with that. As the cap rises though Wiggins deal will likely start to look less ominous if he at least is a Rudy Gay type. He will be moveable or useful.

One last comment on Butler. I do think he goes to far wanting guys to do things the way he does them. For example he is up working out at 4am or whatever. There is legit science that says not everyone is on the same biological rhythms and so that isn't going to work for everyone. Heck I don't know how some of these guys get good sleep with all the travel and games and all that. I have a hard time getting to sleep after watching some of these games much less being a guy that played in one. I'd probably need like 3 hours to wind down. Lol The point is so think unless you have achieved something in the league Butler doesn't give you a pass to do it your way. Not everyone does it the same way. People sometimes don't do it the right way with their own way but some people do. Not everyone feeds off of confrontation and yelling and screeming and in general taking all the time. I have a friend I went to college with that's kinda like Butler and he is weird annoying loud with a lot of energy but he often is fun to be around and playing ball he always gave ridiculous effort. I learned to take nothing he said personally and basically ignored the stuff I didn't need to hear and lol'd at a lot of the stuff he says. The way he went about things doesn't motivate me I don't really like it. He lives here still and has chilled out quite a bit now but is still pretty funny.

I was thinking about some past trades and Eric Bledsoe last year came to mind. The Suns got off to a bad start and Bledsoe asked out (it wouldn't be shocking if he asked out earlier). So the Suns were asking for all kinds of stuff and they ended up with Greg Monroe who was an expiring contract and a guy that had some chance of maybe being flipped for a protected 1st round pick and a protected 2nd round pick. Bledsoe was on a good 2 year deal which had a lot of value but I'd say he isn't as valuable as Butler for various reasons. Both have some injury concerns and Bledsoe wasn't exactly looking like a stellar teammate at the time. He was sent home so the Suns didn't exactly have a lot of leverage. The 2nd round pick had protections and it looks like it was moved in some type of deal by the Suns. The 1st round picks has some interesting protections on it before becoming unprotected in 2021. Several people criticized the Sun for not looking for better assets for taking on more longer term salary since it seemed they were unlikely to use it on players. They got Ariza for a year this year with that space. So looking at this deal I think the Wolves can do better than this package which would certainly be better than nothing.

How do we know it wasn't Glen that said no to renegotiating Jimmy's contract? Seems to fit the profile.

thedoper wrote:How do we know it wasn't Glen that said no to renegotiating Jimmy's contract? Seems to fit the profile.

I disagree, Doper. Look at how much rope and deference Glen is giving Thibodeau even now under these circumstances when almost any other owner would have fired him. Given how much leeway Thibodeau has now, there should be no doubt that Thibodeau had carte Blanche to renegotiate Butler's contract at least up to the luxury tax threshold. But the stubborn Thibodeau wanted both Taj AND Teague and insisted on paying a premium to get them. Thibodeau could have given Butler what he wanted without exceeding the luxury tax by simply foregoing one of those two deals. Just another example of Thibodeau's poor judgment and stubborn attitude.

After giving up all those assets for Butler, it was idiotic to pass up the opportunity to lock him in long term in order to sign Jeff Teague to a $19 million per year contract for three years. Of course if not for the Gorgui contract a year earlier, Thibodeau could have had Teague and Taj with enough left to renegotiate Jimmy's deal.