The Insane Jimmy Butler Trade-Demand Beef, Explained

“You gotta take the crooked with the straights" is a line that Minnesota Timberwolves star Jimmy Butler apparently offered on multiple occasions, sans context, when our own Clay Skipper profiled him back in February. Skipper interpreted that opaque bit of advice—which is from August Wilson's Fences—to mean "taking the expected with the sudden misadventures life throws at you."

Butler is dealing with a lot of crooked right now. On Wednesday afternoon, reports emerged that Butler, who propelled the Timberwolves to their first playoff appearance in 14 years last year, had requested a trade. NBA trade requests pop up like whack-a-moles every offseason, but in the ensuing hours, two of Butler's current but probably soon-to-be-former teammates, Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, found several ways to commit the ultimate sin of being Too Online—all before Stephen Jackson got involved. You never want Stephen Jackson to get involved.

Here are the seven stages of this soap opera:

1. The Inciting Incident

NBA Twitter blows up after a bunch of reporters write that Butler wants out of Minnesota. He's the latest to engage in some pre-free agency maneuvering: With one year left on his contract, he let Timberwolves head coach Tom Thibodeau know he won't re-sign with the team next summer. Butler's preferred destinations are the Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks, which is a real sentence and not a joke.

2. Family Joins the Fray

Andrew Wiggins's brother, Nick Wiggins, is overjoyed to hear that Butler wants to leave Minnesota. Andrew Wiggins is usually thought of as a soft-spoken, uncontroversial athlete (his mid-range game aside), which makes Nick's celebrating on his brother's behalf kind of significant.

3. The Intrigue Builds

A top-15 NBA player is trying to leave his team a month before the start of the regular season, which could have huge implications for the non-Warriors NBA ecosystem. Naturally, social media plugs its ears and immediately latches on to a conspiracy theory that Butler may have been involved with Towns's ex-girlfriend. Beyond some inconsequential Instagram sleuthing of Towns's account, there is absolutely no proof this is true. But Towns, who is rumored to not get along with Butler all that well for non-ex-girlfriend reasons, responds as follows:

Three crying-of-laughter emojis! A strong denial, indeed.

4. Our Protagonist Responds

Jimmy Butler heads to Instagram and submits a 10-second clip of him working out—a daily requirement in the NBA offseason—that ends with him saying, "Hallelujah, keep that same energy," a reference to Nick Wiggins's tweet. Nick deletes his tweet, and thus does not keep that same energy.

5. A New Challenger Emerges

Retired swingman and noted weed enthusiast Stephen Jackson is 40 years old, but his impeccable credentials as Someone You Do Not Want to Mess With put him in an elite group that includes Charles Oakley, Dennis Rodman, and a handful of other former players. For whatever reason, Jackson goes on IG and gives some admittedly harsh unsolicited advice to Andrew and Nick Wiggins, which also ends with "keep that same energy." Engaging with Jackson is a fool's errand, but with familial pride on the line, the otherwise amicable Andrew logs on with an IG story of his own...

6. Seriously, How Much Longer Can This Go On?

Jackson does not take kindly to Andrew's rejoinder and issues one of his own that literally starts with him blowing smoke alongside the caption, "Have a good yr lil one. This ain’t the smoke u won’t. [sic].God bless. Somebody @ Lil one for me." It is unclear whether Jackson doesn't know how to @ someone on Instagram (again, he's 40), or if this is a power move. Regardless, by Thursday morning, Jackson was posting again, this time to announce that fellow retiree and Someone You Do Not Want to Mess With Jerry Stackhouse persuaded him to cool off. Crisis averted.

7. Sure, Why Not?

Lauri Markkanen was the seventh overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, acquired by the Chicago Bulls in the trade that sent Butler to Minnesota. He decides that this particular Thursday is the ideal one for a #TBT picture of his draft-day outfit.

Keep that same energy, Mr. Markkanen. You, too, reader. Always keep that same energy.