Minnesota Timberwolves: What the team faces without Jimmy Butler
With Jimmy Butler potentially sidelined due to his knee injury, what does that mean for the Minnesota Timberwolves?
As you probably have heard, All-Star shooting guard Jimmy Butler suffered a non-contact knee injury during the Minnesota Timberwolves‘ recent game against the Houston Rockets.
When he went down, you immediately knew this was something serious. He failed to walk off the court under his own power, so he had his teammates escort him to the locker-room.
Once it was evident that it was his knee, the thought that immediately jumped into the minds of Timberwolves fans everywhere was that it was his ACL.
However, Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports confirmed it was an meniscal injury instead.
Minnesota All-Star Jimmy Butler has suffered meniscal right knee injury.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 24, 2018
A meniscus injury is better than a torn ACL, right? That’s my non-medical opinion, so you shouldn’t exactly be running to the bank with that.
A little more than a day after the actual injury happened, the team announced that he underwent successful surgery.
That’s the good news; the bad news is that there’s currently no timetable for his return other than Charania’s estimate of 4-6 weeks. Now if I’m just purely speculating, I think he’s probably going to be out for the rest of the season.
With there being less than 20 games left in this season, I think it would be nothing short of a miracle to get Butler back out there on the floor.
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Given the fact that he may be out for the rest of the year, where does that leave the Timberwolves? Well, they’re losing a guy who scored 22.2 points, grabbed 5.4 rebounds and dished out 5.0 assists per game.
Those numbers are exactly what you wanted out of Butler when the deal with the Chicago Bulls went down. Butler also had 8.6 Win Shares on the season and his Player Efficiency Rating (PER) was 23.6.
I mean the man’s an All-Star – he’s going to put up great numbers. Without him in the lineup every night, are the Timberwolves going to continue to be ranked top-four in the Western Conference? “Probably not” would be my guess.
The Wolves are going to have to see players like Andrew Wiggins step up in a big way. With Butler on the floor, Wiggins was usually the third option (behind Karl-Anthony Towns). Now Wiggins is the second option for the team.
There’s no question that the University of Kansas alum has an incredible amount of talent. Being the No. 1 pick usually highlights that. But right now he’s averaging 17.7 points, 4.2 rebounds and only 1.7 assists per game. Compared to Butler’s 8.6 Win Shares, Wiggins has just 1.5.
What does that mean? It means that up until this point, he hasn’t impacted the game night in and night out like Butler has. A large part of that is due to the fact that Butler touches the ball more than he does.
Who else on the team has to step up besides Andrew Wiggins? Guys like Shabazz Muhammad and Jamal Crawford are going to see huge boosts in their playing time, so you would think they would have to step up the most.
Next: NBA Rookie of the Year ladder, Week 20
When a player of this magnitude goes down for a team, it’s not about just a few guys. It’s about seeing how every member of the team can shoulder the workload to try to make a playoff push without their star.