Minnesota Timberwolves: What’s Available to Spend in Free Agency?
With this team near complete, what available resources does the team have to throw at a free agent this summer?
Bleacher Report has done a series about the upcoming free agency period in the NBA. They have put together a list of every NBA team and what they have to play with in the free agency period.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are in an intriguing position as of right now with a young, talented roster, and a great salary cap situation.
Guaranteed Salary: $60,264,642
Non-Guaranteed Salary: Damjan Rudez ($1,199,000), Greg Smith ($1,139,123)
Free-Agent Cap Holds: Tayshaun Prince ($980,431)
First-Round Pick Holds: No. 5 ($3,227,100)
Dead Money: Kevin Martin ($1,380,305)
All-Inclusive Total: $68,190,601
Cap Space: $23,809,399
This is what they had to say about the Minnesota Timberwolves coming into the free agency period.
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"Unanimous Rookie of the Year Karl-Anthony Towns jumping center; Andrew Wiggins on the perimeter; Ricky Rubio breaking down defenses; Zach LaVine churning out highlight dunks and draining spot-up triples; Nemanja Bjelica doing the stretch-4 thing; Gorgui Dieng providing understated defensive support; another top-five draft prospect; Tom Thibodeau coaching up some of the NBA’s premier kiddies.Kevin Garnett whispering ceaselessly barking defensive wisdom into the ears of everyone in the vicinity.What more could the Minnesota Timberwolves need?How about $23.8 million in cap space and the ability to stir up even more?The Timberwolves won’t—or at least shouldn’t—be chasing an instant turnaround just because Thibodeau is stalking the sidelines. But it’s good/scary to know they can afford any free agent should they decide to gun for an immediate playoff berth."
Bleacher Report also did another prediction of what free agent each team will sign this offseason. There has been a lot of speculation on who the Minnesota Timberwolves will target, from ex-Thibodeau players to big names.
It looks like they do not see the Minnesota Timberwolves signing anyone in this summer’s free agency period. Here is what they had to say.
"This is a question of math for the Minnesota Timberwolves.In decreasing order of salary, Ricky Rubio, Nikola Pekovic, Kevin Garnett, Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns, Nemanja Bjelica, Zach LaVine, Shabazz Muhammad, Adreian Payne, Gorgui Dieng and Tyus Jones are all under contract for the 2016-17 campaign.That’s already 11 players, even with Damjan Rudez likely to work out a new deal in a new location rather than stay and have his team option picked up, per Bosnian and Croatian websites reporter Igor Marinovic. Only Tayshaun Prince and Greg Smith are guaranteed to come off the books, and those players should be replaced before the free-agency process begins in earnest.With the No. 5 pick of the 2016 NBA draft, the Wolves will surely select someone who can make an immediate impact rather than going the draft-and-stash route. And that already brings us up to an even dozen.If Minnesota does add a 13th member to its roster, it will be a low-impact player, and that’s basically impossible to predict."
What they say does make sense. There are a lot of players signed for next season, filling almost every roster spot. Unless they can offload Pekovic’s contract or Garnett retires, neither of which will probably happen, they are going to have a hard time making space for another free agent addition after the draft is all said and done.
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Whatever the team does, they are in a nice position to become a great time sooner than later. They also have the cap space, that if they are smart with, that will be needed to retain all of the up and coming young players they have on their roster. Let’s hope so!