Minnesota Timberwolves Free agency: What exemptions do Wolves have?

Building an NBA roster is not as straightforward as you may think. That is where the challenge comes for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly. If you follow the NBA salary cap restrictions, you know that the Timberwolves are up against it. In financial terms, the Timberwolves are between a rock and a hard place.

The NBA and NBPA have ratified a more punitive (and far more complex) NBA Salary Cap system that is intended to punish those perennial excessive salary cap offenders far more harshly.

New NBA salary cap numbers for 2023-2024, per sources: Salary Cap: $136M; Tax Level: $165.2M; First Apron: $172.3M; Second Apron: $182.7M; Non-taxpayer mid-level exception: 12.4M. The salary cap and tax levels will rise 10 percent.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 30, 2023

What that means is, the Timberwolves roster has already gotten fairly expensive. Per Spotrac.com, the Timberwolves 14 players will cost the Timberwolves $164,531,412 as of September 18, 2023. That translates into the fact that the Timberwolves are simply $7,814,588 under the 2023-24 First Apron Level and $18,262,588 under the 2023-24 Second Apron Level.

We’ll discuss those terms in a moment.

Minnesota Timberwolves Salary Cap exemptions

So do the Minnesota Timberwolves possess any salary cap exemptions right now? Yet, the team may not be able to use them. The Timberwolves have access to the following cap exemptions:

Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level – $3,405,000
Bi-Annual – $4,516,000
Trade – $3,688,117

So now let’s translate some terminologies:

For starters, let’s set the parameters for NBA teams. The National Basketball Association announced that the salary cap has been set at $136.021 million for the 2023-24 season for July 1, 2023. The tax level for the 2023-24 season is $165.294 million. As a result of that announcement

The Minimum Team Salary is $122.418 million for the 2023-24 season.
The First Apron Level is $172.346 million for the 2023-24 season.
The Second Apron Level is $182.794 million for the 2023-24 season.

Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exemption: An exemption that is awarded annually to NBA teams who are above the cap but below the Luxury Tax Apron ($172,346,000) and can be used for contracts up to 4 years in length.

Taxpayer Mid-Level Exemption: An exemption that is awarded annually to NBA teams that are above the Luxury Tax Apron ($172,346,000) and can be used for contracts up to 4 years in length. (Minnesota Timberwolves qualify for the more favorable NT MLE)

Bi-Annual Exemption: An exemption that is available to any NBA team that is below the Luxury Tax Apron ($172,346,000), and did not use this exception in the previous season. It can be used for contracts up to 2 years in length.

Trade Exemption: An exemption that becomes available when a team relinquishes more salary than it acquires during a trade. The “credit” balance remains as an exception that can be used within the next year to acquire salary via trade without further relinquishing additional salary. In the case of the Minnesota Timberwolves, the trade exemption occurred due to the D’Angelo Russell trade with the Los Angeles Lakers

First Apron Level: Also known as the Luxury Tax Apron, is set above. Exceeding that amount will trigger the following penalties:

Teams cannot acquire a player in a sign-and-trade if that player keeps them above the apron.
Salary matching in trades must be within 110 percent, rather than 125 percent for teams not above the apron.
Teams cannot sign a player waived during the regular season whose salary was over the $12.2 million midlevel exception

Second Apron Level: Also known as the Super Tax Apron is set above. Exceeding that amount will trigger the following penalties:

Teams cannot include cash in a trade
First-round picks seven years out are frozen (unable to be traded)
Teams cannot use a trade exception generated by aggregating the salaries of multiple players
Teams cannot use a trade exception generated in a prior year
A team’s first-round pick is moved to the end of the first round if they remain in the second apron for three out of five seasons

As you can see, the Minnesota Timberwolves are currently under both Salary Cap Apron Levels at the moment, and the team certainly wants to keep it that way. And so, the Minnesota Timberwolves must step gingerly in the NBA Free Agency market. There is still that matter of an extension for small forward Jaden McDaniels hanging in the balance as well.

Stay tuned.

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