New on Sports Illustrated: Jamal Crawford Says Jimmy Butler Wore a Rolex During Infamous Timberwolves Practice

The legend of Jimmy Butler grows.

He really stunted on them

It may seem silly at first, but if you think about it, one of the three most defining moments of Jimmy Butler’s career thus far had to have been his infamous practice with the Timberwolves on Oct. 10, 2018.

At the time, Butler was locked in a standoff with Minnesota management over his requested trade. The T-Wolves had been trying to find the right trade partner for about a month, during which time Butler wasn’t with the team. But when head coach Tom Thibodeau told Butler to come in on that day and hit the court with his teammates, Butler obliged and

proceeded to torch the starters while playing with a bunch of guys from the end of the bench. He ran his mouth the whole time, too, reportedly telling general manager Scott Layden, “You f------ need me, Scott. You can't win without me.”

But there’s another wrinkle to the story. Butler’s former Minnesota teammate Jamal Crawford appeared on a recent episode of Shannon Sharpe’s podcast Club Shay Shay and said he heard that Butler was wearing a Rolex the whole time.

“I was gone at that time. Remember, I only stayed one year,” Crawford said. “But Jimmy called me. He said, ‘Man, if you could have been at this practice here.’ He came to the practice, I believe, and they were kind of shocked to see him because I think he was coming off an injury. I’m going to tell you the coldest part, and I don’t know if Jimmy said this. I think he had his Rolex on while he was killing everybody with the ball. I think he had a Rolex watch on while he was killing people, picking them apart in practice, and then walked off again. It was classic, from what I heard.”

Now, take Crawford’s story with a grain of salt because he wasn’t actually there, but we do know that Butler is into high-end watches. He wore a Rolex Daytona Rainbow (valued at $250,000) for media day with the Heat in 2019 and wore a much more modest Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711 (valued at about $125,000) when he appeared on the YouTube series Hot Ones in 2019.

The whole point of the practice performance (in which, by the way, he only took a single shot) was to stunt on the T-Wolves. And rocking a six-figure watch while doing so really rubbed their faces in it. 

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