Minnesota Timberwolves: Ranking trade value on the Wolves’ roster

Let’s take a spin through the Minnesota Timberwolves roster and rank each player from least tradeable to most tradeable.

In the aftermath of being left out of the NBA’s COVID-19 season reboot, the Minnesota Timberwolves are heading into a crucial offseason.

In an effort to build around Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell, Wolves president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas will more than likely be looking to make some trades once the season concludes, whether that involves swapping players or utilizing draft assets.

Using a number of metrics, this article ranks the tradeability of each current Wolves player (excluding Evan Turner). With metrics for contract value, market value, and expendability, reasonable assumptions can be made as to how likely and feasible a trade involving each player could be.

Here is a breakdown of the tradeability criteria metrics we’ll be using.

1. Contract Value: The value of the contract given the up-to-date performance of the player. Players with high contract values outperform their contracts. This metric also considers the ability of general managers to trade a contract. For example, players with max contracts tend to be more difficult to trade due to the size and nature of their contracts (see: the Andrew Wiggins trade).

2. Market Value: An estimate of a player’s value in the trade market. Players who score high in this metric are more likely to be desired by other teams in trades.

3. The Rosas Factor: A metric that attempts to measure the expendability of a player given GM Gersson Rosas’ past approach to building a roster. Players who better fit the Wolves’ current system with Ryan Saunders will score lower in this metric, making them less tradable. This metric also considers how players were acquired, team needs, and past player performance.

Each of the three metrics are scored out of 10, creating a composite score out of 30. Players with higher scores are ‘more tradable’ and players with lower scores are ‘less tradable’.

With this framework established, let’s attempt to map out how tradable each Wolves player is.