Hours after Jimmy Butler was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, newly former teammates Karl Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins hailed praise at the 29-year-old, with Towns calling him “one hell of a player.”
“He’s one hell of a player,” Towns said on Sunday. “I don’t know how many Jimmy Butlers there are in the world, so I think he’ll be missed.”
In spite of the praise, Towns hasn’t had much success playing alongside Butler. In the nine games they played together this season, he averaged just 15.3 points and 10.7 rebounds, down from 25.1 points and 12.3 rebounds without Butler last season.
Towns admittedly didn’t want to see Butler leave and had been shutting down any rumors about his teammate for months. Although not very surprising, the team didn’t know whether Butler would be traded until last week. Everyone was in the place as they headed to California when the news was broken.
Former teammate Taj Gibson said the news came as a shock to everyone despite the fact they knew Butler wanted a trade out.
“No matter what, even if you want to ask for a trade, when you finally get traded it’s kind of a weird feeling,” Gibson said. “That is the moment I felt for him.”
Wiggins praised his former teammate in a different way, saying he had learned a lot of things from him.
“I learned a lot of things from him,” Wiggins said. “We made the playoffs, something we haven’t done in a long, long time. So, I think it was a positive either way you put it.”
