Jimmy Butler Says Minnesota Relationship Beyond Fixing, Details Fiery Wolves Practice

The Jimmy Butler saga continues to get more and more interesting as the shooting guard had a fiery return to practice for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Butler of course, wants to be traded away from the Wolves but no team is yet to make an offer Minnesota deems acceptable. The Miami Heat, one of the 28-year-old's preferences were close, only for Minnesota to demand more in the end which ultimately collapsed trade talks.

Butler has so far missed out on the team's preseason after getting permission, but returned Wednesday in memorable fashion.

According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, Butler was "verbally challenging teammates, coaches and front office," targeting the likes of head coach Tom Thibodeau, general manager Scott Layden and teammates Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

In addition, Butler was doing all this while playing alongside the third string during a scrimmage in which his side won against the starting players.

According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, many players were motivated by Butler but some were said to be affected such as Towns, who was the target of Butler's trash talk during the scrimmage and is said to be a source of the latter's frustration in Minnesota as well.

"Some players were motivated by Butler’s theatrics," Haynes wrote. "But others were distraught and speechless, and most notably Towns."

Butler later appeared in an interview with ESPN's Rachel Nichols and confirmed most of the reports from earlier in the day.

"A lot of it is true," Butler said. "I haven't played basketball in so long. I'm so passionate. I don't do it for any reason but to compete. All my emotion came out in one time. Was it the right way? No! But I can't control that when I'm out there competing. That's raw me, me at my finest, me at my purest. That's what you're going to get inside the lines."

“I think that I was honest. Was I brutally honest? Yes. I think that’s the problem. Everybody’s so scared to be honest with one another. If you didn’t like the way that I handled myself in practice, one of the players come up to me. Somebody say something, anybody. I’m not gonna take any offense. It’s not personal.”

Butler confirmed he would return to practice Thursday but that doesn't mean things are fixed in Minnesota and he could potentially have a change of heart.

"I think people think that, I would think that too. It's not fixed, it could be but do I think so? No," Butler added. "Because you got to be honest, I'm being honest with you but is everybody is going to be honest? No."

The Marquette graduate still has one year left on his deal and Wojnarowski previously reported he has no intentions of missing out on regular season games if he is not traded before the start of the season.

Butler averaged 22.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.9 assists last season and helped the Wolves reach the playoffs for the first time since 2004.