From the Ringer: “He has to be on his best behavior [in Philly], and he knows it,” a league executive told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. “If he screws up that team, that’ll be three straight teams. Someone will sign him in free agency, but he won’t get all that he’s asking for.”
And there’s the rub: Is Butler really willing to sign up for that, after doing everything his way has gotten him this far?
“Like, you can’t judge the way I do things, whether you like it or not,” Butler told Sam Amick of The Athletic just before the trade. “Because I think that that’s the best way that I know how to express myself and how to get you to do what I’m asking you to do, and however you want me to do what you ask me to do. It’s how you go about it.”
How Butler goes about his business in Philadelphia could be the difference between the Sixers rejoining the championship conversation or spiraling out of control, and between Butler cementing himself as one of the premier versions of the league’s most valuable type of player or being branded as a stay-away malcontent. Butler played the Wolves heads up and won big. But another hand is about to start, and now the stakes are even higher.