Minnesota Sports Forum

The team was 37 - 22 (63%... 52-win pace) with Butler and Towns in the lineup. Considering the team hadn't made the playoffs for 13 years... nor even had a winning record for 12 years... I can't agree that it was NOT working.

Or that Thibs should have been fired after the 2018 season.



[Note: Retool/rebuild... after one winning season out of 14? Yikes. Personally, I expect more from the local NBA franchise.]

AbeVigodaLive wrote:The team was 37 - 22 (63%... 52-win pace) with Butler and Towns in the lineup. Considering the team hadn't made the playoffs for 13 years... nor even had a winning record for 12 years... I can't agree that it was NOT working.

Or that Thibs should have been fired after the 2018 season.



[Note: Retool/rebuild... after one winning season out of 14? Yikes. Personally, I expect more from the local NBA franchise.]

Yep. Also people talk about the wolves sneaking in (what they did) but going into that night wolves could of been the 4th seed. Also only 2 games out of the 3 seed. How much would of the narrative changed if the other games fell in the wolves favor

AbeVigodaLive wrote:The team was 37 - 22 (63%... 52-win pace) with Butler and Towns in the lineup. Considering the team hadn't made the playoffs for 13 years... nor even had a winning record for 12 years... I can't agree that it was NOT working.

Or that Thibs should have been fired after the 2018 season.



[Note: Retool/rebuild... after one winning season out of 14? Yikes. Personally, I expect more from the local NBA franchise.]

Yet they almost missed the playoffs after Butler missed his usual amount of games. Maybe that coincided with Butler sleeping with KAT's girl which sounds plausible as something Butler would do. I seem to remember KAT's game absolutely tanking, especially in the playoffs.

Wether that is true or not, things were not working in the end between them. Which is why Butler decided to late in the summer ask for a trade. Maybe he said it's with me or them (Kat and Wiggins), you pick. I really don't know. Thibs should have, Glen should have had some knowledge of what was going on.

If Thibs was even remotely proactive he would have moved on from Butler sooner, same with Taylor and firing Thibs.

kekgeek1 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:The team was 37 - 22 (63%... 52-win pace) with Butler and Towns in the lineup. Considering the team hadn't made the playoffs for 13 years... nor even had a winning record for 12 years... I can't agree that it was NOT working.

Or that Thibs should have been fired after the 2018 season.



[Note: Retool/rebuild... after one winning season out of 14? Yikes. Personally, I expect more from the local NBA franchise.]

Yep. Also people talk about the wolves sneaking in (what they did) but going into that night wolves could of been the 4th seed. Also only 2 games out of the 3 seed. How much would of the narrative changed if the other games fell in the wolves favor

The Wolves played without Butler down the stretch... which obviously hurt the overall record a bit.

They also won 5 of the final 7 games, including a winner-take-all game #82... so it's not like they sneaked in through a backdoor either.

WolvesFan21 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:The team was 37 - 22 (63%... 52-win pace) with Butler and Towns in the lineup. Considering the team hadn't made the playoffs for 13 years... nor even had a winning record for 12 years... I can't agree that it was NOT working.

Or that Thibs should have been fired after the 2018 season.



[Note: Retool/rebuild... after one winning season out of 14? Yikes. Personally, I expect more from the local NBA franchise.]

Yet they almost missed the playoffs after Butler missed his usual amount of games. Maybe that coincided with Butler sleeping with KAT's girl which sounds plausible as something Butler would do. I seem to remember KAT's game absolutely tanking, especially in the playoffs.

Wether that is true or not, things were not working in the end between them. Which is why Butler decided to late in the summer ask for a trade. Maybe he said it's with me or them (Kat and Wiggins), you pick. I really don't know. Thibs should have, Glen should have had some knowledge of what was going on.

If Thibs was even remotely proactive he would have moved on from Butler sooner, same with Taylor and firing Thibs.

Sure. When Butler announced he wanted out... sure. Thibs lost me for good when he let Butler highjack the team and hold it hostage... while completely throwing the two young players (ironically/coincidentally/conveniently making more money than him) under the bus.

That's when Thibs should have been fired.

But it seemed like you (and others at the time) were advocating for firing Thibs just because the 47 - 35 season wasn't good enough. Those are two entirely things for me.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

WolvesFan21 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:The team was 37 - 22 (63%... 52-win pace) with Butler and Towns in the lineup. Considering the team hadn't made the playoffs for 13 years... nor even had a winning record for 12 years... I can't agree that it was NOT working.

Or that Thibs should have been fired after the 2018 season.



[Note: Retool/rebuild... after one winning season out of 14? Yikes. Personally, I expect more from the local NBA franchise.]

Yet they almost missed the playoffs after Butler missed his usual amount of games. Maybe that coincided with Butler sleeping with KAT's girl which sounds plausible as something Butler would do. I seem to remember KAT's game absolutely tanking, especially in the playoffs.

Wether that is true or not, things were not working in the end between them. Which is why Butler decided to late in the summer ask for a trade. Maybe he said it's with me or them (Kat and Wiggins), you pick. I really don't know. Thibs should have, Glen should have had some knowledge of what was going on.

If Thibs was even remotely proactive he would have moved on from Butler sooner, same with Taylor and firing Thibs.

Sure. When Butler announced he wanted out... sure. Thibs lost me for good when he let Butler highjack the team and hold it hostage... while completely throwing the two young players (ironically/coincidentally/conveniently making more money than him) under the bus.

That's when Thibs should have been fired.

But it seemed like you (and others at the time) were advocating for firing Thibs just because the 47 - 35 season wasn't good enough. Those are two entirely things for me.

Yes and no. The season wasn't good enough in that the combination of Thibs, Butler, KAT Wiggins wasn't ever going to be a championship team. Because for the reasons I mentioned before, Butler was going to be traded or let go (after the next season) for one. Taylor wasn't going to start paying LUX tax based on his history. The other contracts Thibs had put the team with limited the near term upside. I didn't see any path to how they were going to win it all with that group. So in the end, my feeling was to retool then. Thibs had enough of a track record of far too many poor decisions and with the lack of any progress of Wiggins, I just saw no chance.

Butler still had nice value with a year left on his contract, so some team would bring him in where they could resign him. Another thing, if Butler was going to be given a max extension, it would have been offered by then. It wasn't, proving that Taylor wouldn't spend the tens of millions or whatever to hang onto Butler with all these other big contracts already on the books.

I didn't think it was likely in any way that Thibs was on a path to contend. So that was basically my reason for wanting him fired.

WolvesFan21 wrote:Yes and no. The season wasn't good enough in that the combination of Thibs, Butler, KAT Wiggins wasn't ever going to be a championship team. Because for the reasons I mentioned before, Butler was going to be traded or let go (after the next season) for one. Taylor wasn't going to start paying LUX tax based on his history. The other contracts Thibs had put the team with limited the near term upside. I didn't see any path to how they were going to win it all with that group. So in the end, my feeling was to retool then. Thibs had enough of a track record of far too many poor decisions and with the lack of any progress of Wiggins, I just saw no chance.

Butler still had nice value with a year left on his contract, so some team would bring him in where they could resign him. Another thing, if Butler was going to be given a max extension, it would have been offered by then. It wasn't, proving that Taylor wouldn't spend the tens of millions or whatever to hang onto Butler with all these other big contracts already on the books.

I didn't think it was likely in any way that Thibs was on a path to contend. So that was basically my reason for wanting him fired.

Actually, Jimmy Butler declined a four-year, $110 million extension while he was in Minnesota, but that was always going to be the case as he stood to make exponentially more money by becoming a free agent and then signing a max contract. He was eligible for the full five-year, $190 million contract if he just waited, which is what he did.

As we know now, Philadelphia offered that exact deal and Butler decided to head to South Beach instead for four-years, $142 million. Just to reiterate, that extension was always going to be declined.

WolvesFan21 wrote:

Sure. When Butler announced he wanted out... sure. Thibs lost me for good when he let Butler highjack the team and hold it hostage... while completely throwing the two young players (ironically/coincidentally/conveniently making more money than him) under the bus.

That's when Thibs should have been fired.

But it seemed like you (and others at the time) were advocating for firing Thibs just because the 47 - 35 season wasn't good enough. Those are two entirely things for me.

Yes and no. The season wasn't good enough in that the combination of Thibs, Butler, KAT Wiggins wasn't ever going to be a championship team. Because for the reasons I mentioned before, Butler was going to be traded or let go (after the next season) for one. Taylor wasn't going to start paying LUX tax based on his history. The other contracts Thibs had put the team with limited the near term upside. I didn't see any path to how they were going to win it all with that group. So in the end, my feeling was to retool then. Thibs had enough of a track record of far too many poor decisions and with the lack of any progress of Wiggins, I just saw no chance.

Butler still had nice value with a year left on his contract, so some team would bring him in where they could resign him. Another thing, if Butler was going to be given a max extension, it would have been offered by then. It wasn't, proving that Taylor wouldn't spend the tens of millions or whatever to hang onto Butler with all these other big contracts already on the books.

I didn't think it was likely in any way that Thibs was on a path to contend. So that was basically my reason for wanting him fired.