Is Tom Thibodeau willing to get fired over Jimmy Butler?

Jimmy Butler is still not at Timberwolves training camp, which is actually odd despite Butler making his well-publicized desire to be traded just a week before training camp opened. This is not the normal outcome from a star’s trade request, which helps remind us this is no ordinary trade request.

Most players under contract show up for media day and training camp even if they have asked to be dealt. Most recent stars who have gone Butler’s route also make their demands in June or July, giving the team plenty of time to work things out. Paul George told the Pacers he did not plan to re-sign with them in free agency a year prior to his contract ending. Kyrie Irving told the Cavaliers two years before his deal was up. Butler waited until late September, just before his final season under contract began.

This request is a gift to the Timberwolves, but the timing is rather difficult. Given Timberwolves managing partner Glen Taylor’s insistence that Butler will be traded quickly despite the front office’s protests, it doesn’t make much sense for the star wing to show up to practice.

But that heightens the oddity of all this.

What happens if a trade doesn’t materialize for another two weeks? For a month? Butler actually sitting out a season he’s under contract is an awful precedent for the NBA. It’s not great for Butler either, though one imagines someone with his work ethic will remain in excellent shape for whichever team ends up getting him.

Meanwhile Tom Thibodeau, the coach and personnel boss of the Timberwolves, still thinks he can convince Butler to stick around, reports The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski. Thibodeau is taking this pose after Taylor, the man who signs his paychecks, declared Butler will be traded. Taylor reportedly went so far as to tell fellow franchise owners that if his front office wasn’t being responsive, they should bring offers directly to him.

As I wrote Monday, this is a horrible process counter to everything we know about how effective team-building works. What it comes down to in the end is this: Thibodeau works for Taylor, and for better or worse, if Taylor has a desired outcome to a problem, Thibodeau’s job is to get there.

Thibodeau is basically refusing to get there. He thinks he can fix this.

Is Thibodeau willing to get fired over this? That’s the question at the core of the standoff between Thibs and Taylor now. Will Taylor dare strip Thibodeau of his front office power while keeping him the head coach? Will Taylor boot Thibodeau outright? Is that in play?

In a way, this is the real bluff that Thibodeau is calling. Sure, he’s calling a bluff on Butler leaving next summer. That’s a terrible, terrible bluff to call — as the last week has shown us, the Timberwolves’ chemistry is unstable and Butler was apparently quite clear in his intentions. Thibs should probably believe him.

The real bluff Thibodeau is calling is that Taylor won’t strip his power or fire him if he continues to ignore direction and fight to keep Butler. That indicates Thibodeau either believes Taylor to be too cowardly to make that leap, or that Thibodeau would rather be stripped of power or fired than to trade Jimmy Butler.

The first stance is mad bravery. The second is brave madness. Often, it’s hard to tell where on that spectrum Thibodeau lives.

Butler is a really, really good player, one of the top 15 in the league. You don’t trade players like that lightly. But this is such an easy equation. The Wolves have Karl-Anthony Towns, another top-15 player who reportedly doesn’t get along with Butler anyway, but who is much younger and just signed a deal to keep him in Minnesota for another six years. Butler can leave, no strings attached, in 10 months.

Having both would be best, sure, but one wants out and can leave soon. If you just trade Butler now, everyone’s happy!

Everyone, except Thibodeau. Because of that, Thibodeau is unwilling to give up the ghost and commit to trading Butler.

That’s what it boils down to: Thibodeau is dismissing Butler’s threat, Taylor’s stated direction, and frankly the best interest of the team he runs. It’s not just valiant and mind-boggling, but selfish too.

Even if Thibodeau truly thinks he can solve this — as Krawczynski’s report makes clear, Thibs is trying to convince others he can — this whole thing is a wildly bad idea. Unless he discovers reason soon, we’ll soon find out the answer to the question of whether he’s willing to be unemployed or under the thumb of a new basketball boss just because he doesn’t want to trade Butler.

The Timberwolves don’t need more dysfunction, but Thibodeau is contributing to it right now. One way or another, it’s got to end.