Minnesota Sports Forum

CoolBreeze44 wrote:How about Knox? I have to believe Butler could fetch him. May not get much more than that but it's enough for me.

Cool - Knox and salary-match filler would be my first choice among all the scenarios mentioned thus far. But I'm convinced the Knicks would not give up Knox. Would I make the offer? Absolutely. And Thibodeau would be guilty of another act of malfeasance if he failed to propose a Butler for Knox deal.

My concern is that Thibodeau is the one we have to depend on to come up with ideas and negotiate. He wants to win now for obvious reasons. Taylor is f'ing up once again by not terminating him and turning the process over to someone else.

lipoli390 wrote:My concern is that Thibodeau is the one we have to depend on to come up with ideas and negotiate. He wants to win now for obvious reasons. Taylor is f'ing up once again by not terminating him and turning the process over to someone else.

What I've always found interesting about the Thibs Layden tenure is that they have never gone all in on winning now. There are always some moves that show they have had an eye towards the future. Both guys are likely working for their jobs under an owner that's as involved as ever. I'd guess they get something of use for the future whether they are likely to be here for that future or not.

Nothing here ideal. Butler needs to be traded ASAP I think I'd rather have Thibs and Layden on board for now than Glen doing a panic move (he is in a bad spot) and basically pick some guy...that...the more I think about it frightens me quite a bit.

I wonder if Philly would bite on a Butler for Covington and Fultz deal.

A starting lineup for the 76ers of Simmons, Reddick, Butler, Saric and Embiid is scary good and would have a chance of getting past Boston in the East.

KiwiMatt wrote:I wonder if Philly would bite on a Butler for Covington and Fultz deal.

A starting lineup for the 76ers of Simmons, Reddick, Butler, Saric and Embiid is scary good and would have a chance of getting past Boston in the East.

Kiwi, that would be a fantastic get for jimmy. Problem is I dont think philly is willing to move fultz now. Fultz could be really good and a all star down the road. I dint know if they want to max jimmy a year from now when they would need to max simmons after 2 years.

Knox from the Knicks, Otto from the Wizards, D'angelo and an unprotected 1st from the Nets, OG from the Raptors, or Tobias and Lou from the Clippers

CoolBreeze44 wrote:How about Knox? I have to believe Butler could fetch him. May not get much more than that but it's enough for me.

KiwiMatt wrote:I wonder if Philly would bite on a Butler for Covington and Fultz deal.

A starting lineup for the 76ers of Simmons, Reddick, Butler, Saric and Embiid is scary good and would have a chance of getting past Boston in the East.

KiwiMatt wrote:I wonder if Philly would bite on a Butler for Covington and Fultz deal.

A starting lineup for the 76ers of Simmons, Reddick, Butler, Saric and Embiid is scary good and would have a chance of getting past Boston in the East.

Philly is loaded even after drafting two high busts in Okafor and Noel and a disappointment in Fullz. I wish the Wolves had approached building our team that way-PATIENTLY. We should have looked to ensure we have three deserving young max players before blowing our capspace. KAT-hell yeah, Wiggs-not so much and Jimmy-a stud, but he's old, injury plagued and a cancer (hell nah). Impatience by Taylor and Pibbs puts us in a situation where we now have to hope Wiggs can be the player we hoped he'd be and hope Taylor can find a coach to help maximize the talents of Wiggs and that we can somehow find another young cornerstone.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:My concern is that Thibodeau is the one we have to depend on to come up with ideas and negotiate. He wants to win now for obvious reasons. Taylor is f'ing up once again by not terminating him and turning the process over to someone else.

What I've always found interesting about the Thibs Layden tenure is that they have never gone all in on winning now. There are always some moves that show they have had an eye towards the future. Both guys are likely working for their jobs under an owner that's as involved as ever. I'd guess they get something of use for the future whether they are likely to be here for that future or not.

Nothing here ideal. Butler needs to be traded ASAP I think I'd rather have Thibs and Layden on board for now than Glen doing a panic move (he is in a bad spot) and basically pick some guy...that...the more I think about it frightens me quite a bit.

Monster, I agree with you in two respects. First, I agree that the Thibs/Layden tenure hasn't gone ALL in on winning now inasmuch as they haven't traded away all our picks and young talent. Second, I agree that the notion of replacing them both in a rush right now is scary.

But my concern with keeping Thibs to head our front office through the Butler deal is two-fold:

First, as head coach, Thibs will likely be even more concerned with winning right away to preserve his coaching tenure and he's shown recent signs of serverly impaired judgment and what I'd consider malfeasance. It's telling and downright scary that Thibs failed for months to address what he had to know was a serious developing problem with Butler and then, after Butler's trade demand, had to be forced by Glen to relent on his "I'm not trading Butler" position. I don't think the Wolves organization can trust him being involved in, much less heading up, the effort to trade Butler.

Second, he has very little credibility left and his presence in light of what has just happened casts an even darker shadow over the team than the one cast by his dark, negative personality. Therefore, I can't see keeping him around this organization as head coach and, if not here as head coach, I can't see how he stays as PBO.

To address our fear of turning the organization over to someone even worse in a panic, I would fire Thibodeau but not Layden. I'd make Layen acting PBO and have him manage the Butler deal under close supervision by others in the organization. As you know, I've never been a big fan of Layden, but I think he can be trusted to faithfully serve the long-term interests of the franchise. I think he could be trusted to pursue a deal for Jimmy without any conscious or subconscious proclivity to favor deals focused more on winning now at the expense of the team's long-term interests.

Right now Layden reports to Thibodeau and he's shown he'll be loyal to Thibs as long as Thibs remains his boss. And Taylor can't be on every call or in the room for every conversation. So Glen can't know for sure what Thibodeau is telling other teams GMs, what possible deals he's slamming the door on and which ones he's encouraging. There's a serious trust issue here -- not because Thibs is an inherently dishonest guy, but because he's likely in full self-preservation mode and seems to bend reality to fit his goals as he did ignoring the serious internal issues developing for many months between Butler and others in the organization. So for me, having Thibs remain here with any role in handling the front office generally or the Butler deal specifically is the scariest thing of all.

lipoli390 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Let's look at this in a different angle. Regardless of appropriate value in a Butler trade is there a realistic player you would be excited about adding to the roster?

I think Tobias Harris is realistic and would be a nice player for this team going forward. He isn't cost controlled but how much will he actually get next summer? He turned down 5 years 80 million and that makes sense. It's not gonna be in the very distant future players that are good staters are gonna be making 15 million a year or more again and Harris could be much better than guy with just a couple NBA skills. He just turned 26 in July and is pretty versatile. I'm not saying he is the guy I would target but I would be excited about adding him and hope we kept him around.

Monster -- I think that's the best way to look at this. I too could get excited over Tobias. I could also get excited over a top 5 draft pick, but not plausible unless Boston somehow agrees to relinquish their 2019 Sacramento pick in some kind of deal for Butler -- an unlikely eventuality. I could maybe get excited about the following players talked about as a possible return for Butler:

1. T. Harris (Clippers - he scores, shoots 3s, rebounds and he's still young)
2. Otto Porter or Bradley Beal (Wizards)
3. Knox (Knicks -- mentioned in media but highly unlikely the Knicks would include him)
4. LaVert (Nets - Maybe could get excited, but would need Nets 1st rounder too)
5. Josh Jackson (Suns)
6. Saric (Sixers)

7. LaVine/Dunn/#7 pick - Markannen

TheFuture wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:Let's look at this in a different angle. Regardless of appropriate value in a Butler trade is there a realistic player you would be excited about adding to the roster?

I think Tobias Harris is realistic and would be a nice player for this team going forward. He isn't cost controlled but how much will he actually get next summer? He turned down 5 years 80 million and that makes sense. It's not gonna be in the very distant future players that are good staters are gonna be making 15 million a year or more again and Harris could be much better than guy with just a couple NBA skills. He just turned 26 in July and is pretty versatile. I'm not saying he is the guy I would target but I would be excited about adding him and hope we kept him around.

Monster -- I think that's the best way to look at this. I too could get excited over Tobias. I could also get excited over a top 5 draft pick, but not plausible unless Boston somehow agrees to relinquish their 2019 Sacramento pick in some kind of deal for Butler -- an unlikely eventuality. I could maybe get excited about the following players talked about as a possible return for Butler:

1. T. Harris (Clippers - he scores, shoots 3s, rebounds and he's still young)
2. Otto Porter or Bradley Beal (Wizards)
3. Knox (Knicks -- mentioned in media but highly unlikely the Knicks would include him)
4. LaVert (Nets - Maybe could get excited, but would need Nets 1st rounder too)
5. Josh Jackson (Suns)
6. Saric (Sixers)

7. LaVine/Dunn/#7 pick - Markannen

I'd throw in Patton also just to be fair. :). In other words, we reverse the deal entirely. But what's really telling is that there is absolutely no way the Bulls would agree to this deal. So gosh, guess who won the deal last summer? Hmm. I remember posting last summer that people were way off base and premature declaring the deal a big win for the Wolves and loss for the Bulls. Butler came here with a record of missing lots of games with injuries, a history of alienating teammates, only two years left on his deal, and a 6-year age gap between himself and our young talent. We've seen all those red flags play out since he came to the Wolves even as we saw the positive impact he had in the won-loss column last season.

The key to evaluating last year's Butler deal from the Wolves perspective will be what the Wolves get in return in this year's Butler deal. T. Harris and Otto Porter are both better than LaVine, but without the full LaVine upside. Same perhaps with Saric. Knox and Josh Jackson have LaVine-type upside. So I think the Wolves land on their feet with respect to the entire Butler saga if we can get one of those five. I still think Dunn could end up being very good and Markannen looked very good as a rookie last season. Yet, I'm going to stop looking back and just look forward.