Is Tom Thibodeau Evolving?

No chance. I simply refuse to believe Thibs is going to change who he is. On what planet can you expect him to not run his players into the ground? Is the thought here that he would, you know, play his bench and young players? A tiger can’t change his stripes and you cannot convince me Thibs will change his substitution patterns and I don’t even care that Butler didn’t even play in the preseason. Let’s say his normal stints are like 7-8 minutes long, maybe he plays like 6-7 minutes. That might be all Thibs can handle.

The one thing that may actually get Thibs to change though is a mandate from his owner. We all know Glen Taylor wants Jimmy Butler traded ASAP, and teams are obviously going to be weary of a guy who is playing 40+ minutes a night coming off knee surgery, even if he shows to be 100% healthy. He may tell Thibs to he needs to keep him in the 25-30 minute range until they can trade him. Don’t sell me that bullshit that it’s because he didn’t play in the first few fake games in October. It’s because the owner needs him in bubble wrap until they can find a deal that works.

This whole thing has to have MIN fan’s brains in a pretzel. On one hand, you want to root for your team and if Butler is still on your team you want to root for him. But on the other than you probably hate him with a passion because MIN people are extremely loyal and he has made it clear he hates everything about your city and franchise. The good news is they open on the road tonight in SA, and don’t play at home until Friday. Is it possible that Butler is moved by then? No chance. That means we’re going to get our first look at how they treat Butler, and it wouldn’t shock me if they booed Butler during intros but cheered him during the game. That’ll really show him.