Chicago Bulls: Jimmy Butler, Carmelo Anthony detail how 2017 trade hurt

Former Chicago Bulls star small forward Jimmy Butler recently detailed on a show with Carmelo Anthony how the 2017 T-Wolves trade hurt him.

In the 2017 offseason, the Chicago Bulls made the move to trade star small forward Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves for what was a controversial and not fantastic return at the time. That trade deal with the Timberwolves saw shooting guard Zach LaVine, point guard Kris Dunn, and eventually power forward Lauri Markkanen all land in the Windy City.

Up to this point, this blockbuster trade between the Timberwolves and Bulls doesn’t look to have worked out too well for either side. “Jimmy G. Buckets” played in less than 82 games total in one season with the Timberwolves. And the Bulls didn’t get the rise to prominence thus far out of Dunn and Markkanen as they had once hoped.

LaVine did become one of the better scorers in the Eastern Conference, and deserved an All-Star selection since it was hosted in Chicago, but it didn’t ultimately come his way. There is also a common realization that LaVine isn’t the answer as the Bulls long-term star and primary scorer if they are to have title aspirations at any point in the next five or 10 years.

Meanwhile, Butler is now starring for head coach Erik Spoelstra and the Miami Heat. He also had one good season with the Philadelphia 76ers last year. But that ended abruptly after Butler didn’t find the right fit alongside point guard Ben Simmons and center Joel Embiid.

Butler was also an All-Star selection in his first seasons with the Sixers and Heat. South Beach does seem like a good fit for Butler.

Now Butler and the rest of the players in the NBA are sitting on pause for the time being while the novel coronavirus pandemic-induced hiatus looms large. The NBA sat in this hiatus since March 11.

To pass the time, Butler took to YouTube and Instagram this week to join up with another big name in the NBA on the show “What’s in Your Glass”. Carmelo Anthony hosts the show on his YouTube channel and Instagram Live and Butler joined him to talk “wine, NBA & Mark Wahlburg”, in a video that was posted on March 31.

Within the last three years, Portland Trail Blazers forward Anthony and Butler were both involved in Bulls trades to varying degrees. Butler was sent to the Timberwolves in 2017 and Anthony was involved in one of those infamous “cash considerations” deals the Bulls made last season. The Bulls took on Melo from the Houston Rockets last season and promptly bought him out.

In this segment on the show between Melo and Butler, the latter talked about how he was “hurt” by the Bulls trade back in 2017. Here’s more on what he had to say on the matter on this show.

"“Ya’ll helped me through that though,” Jimmy Butler told Carmelo Anthony on IG live about what he and Dwyane Wade did for him. “I remember sitting at the dinner and ya’ll was like, ‘Yo, you’re still a helluva player. You’re gonna go do what you were doing in Chicago in Minnesota. You’re gonna change the culture there…“I was hurt.”"

Apparently both Melo and Chicago native future Hall-of-Fame shooting guard Dwyane Wade helped Butler through that time with the Bulls trade that hit him hard personally. D-Wade did play for the Bulls for one season, which was also Butler’s last one in Chicago. But that team didn’t mesh well at all given the talent level and star power.

Butler will be trying to lead his Heat team as a dark horse in the East in the playoffs this year if and when the NBA season resumes in the coming months. The Bulls meanwhile sit with a record of 22-43 during the COVID-19-induced hiatus.