Jimmy Butler knew either him or Derrick Rose would be traded

Chicago Bulls forward Jimmy Butler had some interesting comments to make about the team trading Derrick Rose.

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The Chicago Bulls are a team that is in transition mode and will look drastically different when they take the court next season. Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah are on the way out as a free agent and the team just traded Derrick Rose to the New York Knicks.

They also were reportedly shopping Jimmy Butler according to trade rumors and almost went with the full rebuild. Instead, it looks like the Bulls are going to be building around their star forward and turning over the keys to him by trading Rose.

Butler isn’t naive about the situation either. Speaking to ESPN’s “The Jump” on Wednesday (Via Cody Westerlund), he knew that either he or Rose would end up being traded.

"“I can’t say that I was surprised,” Butler said Wednesday on ESPN’s “The Jump.” “I knew it had to be one of us, to tell you the truth. Obviously, I enjoyed playing with him. I came into the league when he was the MVP. I got so much respect for the guy. I have no bad things to say about him. I wish him the best moving forward.”"

While it was a case of having to trade one star to hand the team over to another, Butler respects Rose a lot and there isn’t any ill will between the two. The Bulls have some other young pieces on their roster and are probably going to need to keep building through the draft, but now the young players will get the chance to make their mark on the roster.

The team officially belongs to Butler as long as they don’t trade him. It will be followed up with young pieces like Doug McDermott, Bobby Portis and Denzel Valentine. The youth movement is on in Chicago.

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