After months of speculation, The Minnesota Timberwolves have made the call to trade guard/forward Jimmy Butler to The Philadelphia 76ers. Joining him heading to Philly is young center Justin Patton.
The 76ers send forwards Robert Covington and Dario Saric who are expected to be big pieces of the Timberwovles this season, and guard Jerryd Bayless who won’t see much time, I’d imagine. They also get a 2nd round pick in 2022.
Timberwolves Get:
SF Robert Covington
PF Dario Saric
PG Jerryd Bayless
2022 2nd Round Draft Pick.
76ers Get:
SG/SF Jimmy Butler
PF/C Justin Patton.
It’s really hard to gauge this trade right now. Saric is a great young player, at only 24. He’s not been featured, but still made an impact for the 76ers. You pair him with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, you might just have a nice young core of guys.
Robert Covington is a good three point shooter, and a good defender, and will be expected to fill in for Butler right away. Covington can play good defensive but offensively is the same force Butler is.
Covington should start with Jeff Teague and Wiggins making up the perimeter. Saric should come off the bench and be their sixth man, as he can score inside, outside and rebound. He’s better than Taj Gibson, but since Gibson is more limited than Saric, you need to hide Gibson’s limitations while taking advantage of his skill set. So you can keep Gibson in the lineup for his rebounding, defense. While on the 2nd unit, Saric will be the primary offensive weapon, along with Derrick Rose.
If Butler re-signs with the 76ers, then they win. They did give up one young player in Saric but they got to keep all their 1st Round picks, and Markelle Fultz. I was even surprised they didn’t need to put in T.J. McConnell.
However, if Butler doesn’t want to stick around, and there’s proof he wants to be in New York or Los Angeles, then this win goes to the Wolves. They got a young Forward, a 3 and D player in his prime, and the dysfunction of Butler off their squad.
The problem for the Wolves is simple and obvious. They gave up Zach LaVine, Kris Dunn and the 7th overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, who became Lauri Markkanen, all for Butler. Not just that, they got back the 16th pick in the same draft….which happened to be Patton. The guy the Wolves just traded away with Butler. Irony. LaVine is in the top five in scoring this year (so far), and Markkanen has the potential of being an All-NBA player.
There was no way the Wolves could recoup all they lost for Butler. This trade is like someone buying an SNES version of Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, with box and book for like $200 in 2009, only to see the dicks at Nintendo flooding the market with affordable versions of the same game on the SNES classics, thereby killing the value of the game. I used to work in a buy-back retail shop and damn, those boxed games would sell for a pretty penny. Then Nintendo killed the secondary market.
Like Butler did. By being a douche.
Final Trade Grades:
Philadelphia 76ers – (B)
Minnesota Timberwolves – (B)