“Call Rachel Nichols”: When Karl-Anthony Towns Finished Jimmy Butler With His Trash-Talk

Trash-talking has always been a feature in pro sports, especially basketball. Players have always engaged in back-and-forth wordplay but until recently microphones were unable to properly capture the vitriol that rival players were spewing at each other. But that’s not the case anymore. Taking to X, hoops page @Legendz_nba recently posted an interesting trash talk from that past that took place between former teammates, Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns.

With enhanced audio and subtitles at our disposal, the scandalous conversation between the former teammates has become even more tantalizing. We can also hear Towns roast Butler for his alleged entanglement with former ESPN host, Rachel Nichols. The entire situation transpired during the NBA bubble when the Minnesota Timberwolves took on the Miami Heat during a game in May 2021.

During the fourth quarter, Big KAT took a sneaky dig at Butler when the duo lined up alongside each other on free throws. But recent audios show that the exchange actually started with Playoff Jimmy telling Towns that he was “soft as baby sh*t.”  To which, the 2015-2016 Rookie of the Year responded by saying, “Call Rachel Nichols, n***a”.

This response from Towns made Butler giggle which further added validity to the rumors that the Heat forward had an affair with Nichols during the 2020 Bubble. There were also reports coming out at that time, that noise complaints had been lodged against Jimmy Buckets during the Bubble, with claims of a repeated thumping noise coming from the All-Stars hotel room. And while it’s fun to speculate, there has been no confirmation about the validity of the rumor, and in all likelihood is nothing more than false allegations.

But even if the rumors may not be real, the animosity between Butler and the KAT-Man definitely is. The former teammates had a rocky relationship throughout Butler’s stay in Minnesota. But the situation came to a boil when Jimmy Buckets tagged along with the second-string team of the T-Wolves and beat Towns and the starters in practice. However, JB didn’t go about the beating silently, as the Heat star called out the GM, Management, and players [especially Towns], during the whole practice.

So it’s safe to say that The Butler’s relationship with ‘Katmandu’ is far from ideal, and their recently surfaced trash talk is just a reminder of what transpired on that fateful day at the T-Wolves facility.