Minnesota Timberwolves exercise 2016-17 options for five players
In a move that shouldn’t really surprise many people, the Minnesota Timberwolves have exercised team options on the contracts of five players for the 2016-17 season.
The news broke early Wednesday afternoon when Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports sent out this tweet. According to Charania, the group of players whose option is being picked up includes Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, Gorgui Dieng, Shabazz Muhammad, and Adreian Payne.
Timberwolves general manager Milt Newton had until November 2nd to make decisions on whether or not to pick up these team options.
The one player that could’ve possibly seen his team option ignored is Adreian Payne due to his lack of production, but it never seemed likely to happen. The Timberwolves staff seemed fascinated with Payne enough last season as they traded a first round draft pick to the Atlanta Hawks for him in the middle of last season.
Exercising third-year options on Wiggins and LaVine and fourth-year options on Dieng and Muhammad seemed like obvious moves to make for Newton. Each of these players have shown flashes of serious potential, and it’s much too early to consider giving up on them.
Below are the amounts of the options picked up, in order of cost. (via an article on Canis Hoopus)
Adreian Payne: $2,022,240
Zach LaVine: $2,240,880
Gorgui Dieng: $2,348,783
Shabazz Muhammad: $3,046,299
Andrew Wiggins: $6,006,600
The Timberwolves wrap up their preseason this Friday night when they host the Milwaukee Bucks at Target Center. A week from today, the regular season gets started for the Timberwolves as they travel to Staples Center to take on the Los Angeles Lakers.
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