Jimmy Butler Trade Demand Devolves into NBA Beef Chaos

While you were getting rested up for tonight's big New York Jets-Cleveland Browns tilt on Thursday Night Football, the NBA Offseason Chaos Machine was whirring along at a fever pitch. It all started with Jimmy Butler letting the Minnesota Timberwolves know that he wanted to be traded, giving three specific teams he'd consider signing long-term with: the New York Knicks, The Brooklyn Nets, and the Los Angeles Clippers.

That was wild enough, but then Andrew Wiggins's brother, Nick, reacted to the news in a since deleted tweet saying "Hallelujah" with some celebratory emojis thrown in as well.

Butler responded with a workout vid (natch) where he echoed the rejoicing sentiments and we were officially in business.

This is where things took a bit of a turn, though. While you might assume Andrew Wiggins would come to the defense of his brother, you would be wrong. Incredibly, and unbelievably wrong. The man who spiced this thing up proper was…Stephen Jackson. Ornery, run-over-by-a-car-in-front-of-a-strip-club Stephen Jackson. Jackson hasn't played in the league since 2014, and is now 40 years old, but he's still got his finger on the pulse of the NBA and his read is this: Andrew Wiggins has no heart.

In a series of Instagram posts, Jackson mocked Wiggins by creating a hypothetical conversation the two brothers should have had after Andrew found out about the Hallelujah tweet, which includes an extended Wizard of Oz analogy where Andrew is the heartless Tin Man.

Things got a little weird(er) at this point because Butler's and Jackson's videos started spreading at around the same time, and not long after that, Andrew Wiggins finally broke his silence on his Instagram story. Most of the world was focused on Jimmy Butler and, for some reason, had not yet accounted for, nor expected Stephen Jackson's presence in this beef.

So when the world read this tweet, it seemed fairly obvious that Wiggins was calling is current teammate a bum ass when referencing the "keep that same energy" part of Butler's video. But we soon came to learn that this was all about Jackson and Wiggins. Jackson responded directly to Wiggins—who we will now be calling "lil' one" for the rest of his life—again telling him to find a heart, and also to "make sure your energy straight when you see me, bruh…just keep that same energy, I'll catch you in traffic. 100."

It might not surprise you to learn that this did not end here and that Nick Wiggins—still somehow involved in this!—headed to Jackson's comments to shit on Jackson's NBA career (which was 14 years longer than Nick Wiggins's, FYI) calling him just a catch-and-shoot three-point specialist and said he probably only averaged 6.5 points per game. Jackson came back with receipts.

That appears to be it, for now. Butler and Wiggins are still teammates and there's nothing forcing the Timberwolves to trade Butler except for, uh, Butler not wanting to be there, and this Butler-Wiggins centric beef that involves family and a grizzled former baller puffing smoke in his den. Enjoy Los Angeles, Jimmy!