Timberwolves Rumors: D’Angelo Russell willing to sign for less than max

The Minnesota Timberwolves have supermax’d Karl-Anthony Towns and have traded for supermax’d NBA center Rudy Gobert. That is a lot of payroll expense to carry on the front court of one basketball team. Now slide in the cost of the next extension for the Timberwolves’ third remaining star, shooting guard Anthony Edwards, and you can see just how quickly the Timberwolves’ salary cap is about to explode very soon.

So that leaves one player in the mix, awaiting his contract extension, but which may not be coming any too quickly. I’m referring to Minnesota Timberwolves point guard D’Angelo Russell, a player who is in the last year of his current contract, and who is also in the mix for contract extensions.

The question is, how much can the Minnesota Timberwolves afford to pay him? And perhaps more importantly, how much is he worth?

That’s a tough one to estimate because the Timberwolves front office has actually made a number of roster moves that should make D’Angelo Russell’s job that much easier. And if his job is easier, he has the potential to break out this season.

And that will drive up his price. Hmm . . .

I don’t see how the Timberwolves can rush this one. While it would be wise to lock in D’Lo before he has an incredible season, I suspect that the team wants to negotiate slowly so as to have a better feel of how well he can run the new and improved roster.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Minnesota Timberwolves were hinting at the team trading away D’Angelo Russell. Now, The Athletic’s Senior Writer Jon Krawczynski is reporting that Russell is willing to sign a less-than-max contract extension. He also reports that there is no significant progress on that extension happening just yet.

It may very well be that both sides have already agreed on a number. The holdup may simply be the Timberwolves’ challenge in finding the money to pay D’Lo with.