Signing Jonathan Kuminga made the Minnesota Timberwolves' stellar offseason look even better. They are now strong at every position; for his talent level, Kuminga is a bargain at two years, $12.4 million. However, the Timberwolves must shed salary since they are now $2.1 million over the second tax apron. Thus, they aren't done making roster moves.
To make this deal official, the Timberwolves legally need to get under the second apron and have enough space to round out their roster. Given this, salary dumping someone like Bones Hyland isn't an option.
There are two mid-sized contract players who can be moved either via trade or waived and stretched: Josh Green and Donte DiVincenzo. Since the Wolves have been firm about keeping DiVincenzo this summer, Green is the most obvious candidate to be moved. Frankly, there has been buzz about Green being on the move since he arrived as part of the LaMelo Ball trade.
It's essential to note that the deadline to waive and stretch players is this Saturday. To this end, if nothing happens by Saturday, it's all but guaranteed that Green will be traded.
The Timberwolves' options to save money
Ideally, the Wolves can find a trade partner who can take on extra cap space and is interested in Green. Timberwolves reporter Dane Moore tossed out the idea of Green for Dalton Knecht and Jaden Hardy, which would save the Timberwolves $4.5 million. Whether it's this trade or something similar, $2.1 million is the magic number for Minnesota.
In the apron era, though, many teams are reluctant to take on extra money. And while Green is a solid role player, he's not a player most teams would be willing to take on extra money for, unless they have a roster crunch.
Unfortunately, the Timberwolves lack the needed draft capital to incentivize teams. Pairing Green with another player could help the Timberwolves strike a deal, but Green's contract can't be aggregated until September 10.
The point being that the Timberwolves' path to trading Green might be harder than it seems. As for waiving him, the big downside is having $4.9 million in dead cap on the books for the next three years. If this is the price for signing Kuminga, so be it. Even if it's not a ton of money, having dead money isn't ideal in the apron era.
After waiving Green, though, the Wolves would be $9.5 million below the second apron, and they'd have two open roster spots to round out their roster. As such, despite the dead money, it wouldn't be an awful situation by any means.
In any event, Timberwolves fans need to stay alert because at least one other roster move is on the way.
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