A couple of years ago, Jimmy Butler became famous – and infamous – around the league for his antics at practice during his time with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Butler was unhappy at the Twin Cities and heavily criticized both Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, deeming them ‘soft’ and uncompetitive.
That’s why he took all the third-stringers during practice and, according to everybody there, proceeded to completely destroy the starters in a pick-up game. Apparently, Butler was even cussing them and claiming that they just couldn’t win without him.
It all ended with Jimmy being labeled as a toxic figure and a bad influence and he was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers.
But, apparently, there was a side of the story we hadn’t heard of that would only make Jimmy Buckets’ legend more impressive. According to Jamal Crawford, he indeed demolished the starters with the third-stringers, all while wearing his Rolex:
“I’m gonna tell you the coldest part, and I don’t know if Jimmy said this. I think he had his Rolex on while he was killing everybody with the ball. I think he had a Rolex watch on while he was killing people, picking them apart in practice, then walked off again. It was classic, from what I heard,” Crawford told Shannon Sharpe in Club Shay Shay.
Well, we all knew Jimmy was a cold dude, but this is just a whole new level. I mean, there are levels to things, even for calling out your teammates.
Eventually, Butler proved that the narrative of his toxic leadership was fake and misguided. He led a young Miami Heat team to the NBA Finals and made them a competitive unit. The Timberwolves, on the other hand, couldn’t make the playoffs again without him and look ages away from being competitive.
At the end of the day, Butler was right. They couldn’t win without him.
