If you’ve ever wondered how interested Jimmy Butler was in joining the Sixers, what really happened at the now-infamous Minnesota Timberwolves practice, and what he thinks of Philadelphia now, you got your wish on the most recent episode of The JJ Redick Podcast.

Redick asked Butler if the Sixers were a team on his radar when he first requested a trade out of Minnesota.

Butler said:

When they were talking, Minnesota and Philly, they liked the deal that they were starting to get and then put together. So that’s when I became kinda aware that I could end up in Philly. Did I think this was gonna be where I ended up? I didn’t think so. And the only reason I didn’t think so was because it’s like, Philly is already a really, really good team. If you put me on there, I would like to think I’m a good enough player to add a little something and maybe get us to the hump of Eastern Conference finals, maybe even Finals.

At one point, Butler channeled his inner Allen Iverson when talking about the buildup to “The Practice”:

I would keep going into the office talking with management, talking with Thibs, and they would be like, “Hey, you need to come in and practice.” I was like, “Thibs, what I need to come in and practice for? Y’all gonna trade me.” What’s the point of practicing—going in there, getting up and down—and then I’m gonna be gone in a day. ’Cause it was always like: We almost got a deal, we almost got a deal, we almost got a deal.

Butler’s Sixers teammate drilled down on the reported details of the practice and how much of it was reported accurately, after the jump: Continue Reading