Jimmy Butler will have "honest conversations" with Tom Thibodeau and Scott Layden about Future In Minnesota

Jimmy Butler helped the Minnesota Timberwolves improve their overall wins by 16 games of the 2016-17 season last season. Playing with one of the most promising young men in the NBA and surrounded, say, by a team of well-known playoff veterans, it looks like Butler has landed in an almost ideal place for the next phase of his career.

But The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski reported Saturday that Butler would meet Tom Thibodeau and Timberwolves general manager Scott Layden on Monday to "have honest conversations" about Butler's future with the organization, which suddenly seems dubious:

With the opening of the training camp in 10 days, it seems that the wolves and the butler have reached the fork, with months of tension and uncertainty involving Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Thibodeau. Shams Charania and me.

It turns out that the meeting did not take place on MondayButler says it'll happen on Tuesday– but there seems to be a lot of smoke here enough for connoisseurs of the NBA to be floating commercial opportunities. It seems that Butler, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins do not like playing together, which would not be such a big deal: LeBron James won a title with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love despite None of them greatly appreciates the experience of playing together, but there are urgent contractual issues that directly affect the immediate and long-term future.

Towns has been proposed but has not yet signed a maximum five-year contract extension. He is a 22-year-old superstar and the current face of the organization, and though part of the delay is due to his adjustment with Butler, it's a major problem. In contrast, Butler is the only player in the squad to have a significant NBA success. And on a strange third hand, maybe a foreigner, Andrew Wiggins has already signed a $ 150 million contract over five years. The player the wolves probably want to keep the most is the cities; the player that they have no choice but to keep is Wiggins; the player that they probably have the most need staying to stay competitive in the brutal Western conference is Butler.

Krawczynski talked about the tough combination of these two players over the summer, and Butler, 29, is at the stage of his career where his next long-term contract could be his last big win. This decision also has major implications for his chances of playing for a true championship contender over what remains of his bonus. It seems as if the Wolves can not convince him that Minnesota is his best home in the long run, they will have to decide immediately what to do for the upcoming season:

Butler is Thibodeau's greatest ally in the Wolves locker room, and the coach has surrounded him with familiar faces to keep him alive, including former bulls Taj Gibson, Derrick Rose and now Luol Deng.

At Monday's meeting, the Timberwolves will have to come up with a plan that clearly shows the way forward for Butler to plunge into another season in Minnesota.

Butler turned down a $ 110 million four-year contract extension in July and will be eligible for a $ 190 million deal when he comes to a free agency next summer. It seems crazy that a team that played its first playoff game in 14 years is on the brink of an internal collapse, but these are the Timberwolves we're talking about. If you're looking for a win, at least if Butler leaves town, there will always be three other members of the last good team of the Bulls.