Timberwolves have ‘hope’ surrounding severity of Jimmy Butler’s injury

Jimmy Butler went down with what appeared to be a non-contact knee injury on Friday in Houston. The team reportedly has some “hope” surrounding the severity of an injury that looked to be quite serious.

In the third quarter of Friday night’s loss in Houston, Timberwolves All-Star Jimmy Butler went down with a non-contact injury. He could not put any weight on his right leg, and had to be carried to the locker room.

It’s the classic play that basketball fans have seen far too many times. A player plants and doesn’t appear to be impacted by any other players, and the leg gives out.

Of course, it’s irresponsible to speculate, but you’d be hard-pressed to find too many examples of incidents similar to the above that didn’t end in a long-term injury. Then again, Jeff Teague had a scare just after Christmas that ultimately amounted to a sprain and a handful of missed games, although Butler’s situation appeared to be a bit scarier.

But that’s probably the best-case scenario that the Timberwolves and their fans can hope for. And according to Yahoo’s Shams Charania, there is some hope to go around, at least for tonight.

The x-ray report is essentially meaningless; it was never likely to be a bone injury. But the rest of the tweet is what should give fans some hope. It will be interesting to hear if anything else leaks on Friday night, as teams usually have a decent idea if something is torn or merely sprained prior to the player undergoing an MRI.

There’s also this, which seems to be positive:

It would be fair to wonder — and, to be clear, this is complete and utter speculation — if there was an existing injury that Butler may have aggravated. You may recall that it was exactly one month ago that the media uncovered a somewhat secretive MRI that Butler apparently underwent.

We don’t know that that potential injury was, but we do know that Butler didn’t miss any time on the court. And then there’s this, from Taj Gibson after Friday night’s game.

Of course, Butler did have somewhat of a history of injuries to his other knee; it was about two years ago when he suffered a strain to his left knee that also carried some concern that it would be a more sever injury.

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We’ll be glued to Twitter, as I’m sure you will too, awaiting word throughout the day on Saturday, and we’ll have reaction here at Dunking With Wolves as soon as anything surfaces.