This Trade Will Change Everything For The Minnesota Timberwolves

This Trade Will Change Everything For The Minnesota Timberwolves

just came here to do my job do my job this is what I’m supposed to do uh give me a chance give me a chance to be great I want to be great this what movies is made of this is what movies made this is what movies is made of four months away I come back two free throws don’t worry about it I got that just because the Minnesota Timberwolves just finished having their best season in 20 years doesn’t mean that they didn’t hit the ground running to make sure that they keep their most important pieces in place Tim Connelly agreed to a contract extension with the Minnesota Timberwolves which is without a doubt the most important piece of this operation he literally turned one of the biggest laughing stocks in the NBA into one of the best teams in the Western Conference and a team that made it to the Western Conference Finals everybody was cheering for Anthony Edwards and maybe if Chris Finch was fully healthy and was able to be on the sideline then things could have been a little different and that’s why the Minnesota Timberwolves also extended Chris Finch for 4 years but there’s a huge question as to how this team can improve and ownership might make it very difficult so we have a lot to discuss before we get to the content we are on the grind to 1 million subscribers we are less than 70,000 subscribers away so if you want to help us get to that goal make sure you sub and turn on our notifications and now that we get all that out the way you the intro [Music] [Music] mik check1 1212 what’s going on everybody the Minnesota Timberwolves reached the Western Conference for the second time in its franchise’s history and this is the very first time they did it since 2004 way back when Kevin Garnett won MVP and was doing things like this I think people forget how dominant a prime pre- Boston Kevin Garnett truly was he gave his best years to the city of Minnesota and it was truly heartbreaking for him to not be able to bring a championship to Minnesota but out aside let’s discuss the current Minnesota Timberwolves having spent much of the Season as the top team in the west the Timberwolves proved that they were no fluke when they beat the reigning Champion Denver Nuggets in game seven of the Western Conference semi-finals in Denver this team overcame an insurmountable lead by the Denver Nuggets to win game seven in Denver and it truly showed that the Minnesota timber rolls could overcome anything the reward was facing off against one of the hottest teams in basketball the Dallas Mavericks who had just beat two 50 win teams in the Los Angeles Clippers and the OKC Thunder I keep telling y’all the western conference is extremely stacked now we all know what would happen from there the MS would go on to nearly sweep the Minnesota Timberwolves I don’t think the series score is really reflective of how intense of a series it truly was and now there’s a huge question of what the future of the Minnesota Timberwolves is going to look like typically you’d think Mike oh my God the Timberwolves made it all the way to the Western Conference Final surely they’re going to run it back with the same roster right it’s a little bit more complicated than that despite their success this season the t-wolves actually find themselves had a dangerous Crossroads after all how did a team that was looking like Championship favorites end up getting bounced in such fashion I mean seriously with Anthony Edwards on the offensive end a four-time defensive player of the year Rudy goar on the defensive end Sixth Man of the Year NS Reed coming off the bench where do they fall short and I know what you guys are going to say Mike Rudy goar sucks on off offense but it’s a little bit more complicated than that now could it have been because of this man right here opinions may vary all the way at the very beginning of the season I warned you guys on this channel that the Minnesota Timberwolves might be looking at trading Carl Anthony towns the thing is back then nazri didn’t emerge as a legitimate replacement SO trading the Timberwolves franchise Cornerstone or one of their franchise cornerstones seemed a little boneheaded at least back then even now some people might think it’s a little boneheaded but there’s a reason why Carl Anthony towns finds himself in rumors and we’ll start from the most clear obvious reason of all there are times where cat and Rudy gobear just don’t seem to fit well with each other but that aside Carl Anthony towns completely disappeared in the Conference Finals I mean he went a combined three of 22 from Beyond The Arc during the first three games of the Conference Finals as well as 0 for eight from Beyond The Arc in game three his team was down 0 and2 on the road and needed to keep their season alive and look if Anthony Edwards pulled a disappearing act which there were games where he disappeared as well I’ll forgive it Anthony Edwards is relatively young even Michael Jordan needed six seasons to win his first championship and actually make a dent in the playoffs I understand a lack of playoff experience affecting your play in the playoffs especially when you’re getting that close to a championship run but Carl Anthony towns doesn’t really have an excuse he’s been in the NBA for eight seasons and although you could say he was devoid of playoff experience himself he is the leader of this franchise he is supposed to The Shack to Anthony edwards’s Kobe and the problem is this isn’t just one occasion where Carl Anthony towns disappeared when you go further into the numbers and compare Rudy goar to Carl Anthony towns goar not only has the better plus minus in the regular season but also in the playoffs whereas Carl Anthony towns as plus minus has been plus 360 in their regular seasons together that number actually goes into the negative at -28 in their playoff trips when you compare that to Rudy goar who’s been a plus 44 in these two regular seasons a number that unlike Carl Anthony towns actually stays in the positive at plus 77 in the playoffs including a top five plus minus finish in the 2024 playoffs at plus 95 now to all you Rudy gobear haters out there would tell me which of these two big men is really the problem but to be fair this isn’t completely on Carl Anthony towns being inconsistent well I mean it kind of is but there is actually more to it because of Minnesota does elect to move on from the stretch four a lot of this decision could be so they can avoid going into the luxury tax threshold like some NBA executives are suggesting may be a possibility now I know I sound like a broken record every single time I bring up the first and second tax apron but I think it’s very important to all the viewers of this YouTube channel to memorize the new CBA because that’s going to be very important when we want to analyze trades in the future and discuss why teams would make specific trades kind of like when the OKC Thunder traded Josh giddy to the Chicago Bulls for Alex Caruso you wouldn’t see a trade like that being made underneath the pre CBA in this current climate teams really need to be wary of who they pay it’s a huge reason why the Los Angeles Clippers are also lowballing Paul George now in the past there was a first tax apron which means if you exceed $178.7 million you’re not allowed to acquire a player in a sign and trade or use a pre-existing trade exception you can’t take back more money in a trade which makes it harder to trade players you’re not allowed to sign a player wave during the regular season that had a pre-existing salary of 12.9 million plus but you are allowed to use a trade exception created from a new trade and you’re allowed to use the $5.2 million taxpayers mid-level exception now if you go to the second apron it makes things even more intense obviously the first three rules apply if you’re underneath the second apron but on top of that it’s even more difficult to trade for players you’re not allowed to aggregate contracts sent out meaning you can’t combine salaries of players to get a player that is making way more or the contract combined of the two players you’re trying to send out you’re not allowed to send out cash you’re not allowed to sign a player waved during the regular season that had a pre-existing salary of $12.9 million plus you’re not allowed to sign and trade your own free agent if the incoming salary exceeds the second apron you’re not allowed to use a trade exception created from a sign and trade you’re not allowed to use a trade exception creative from a new trade and probably the most Sinister rule of all is your 2032 first round pick is frozen if a team finishes the 2024 to 25 season over the second apron and the second apron is $1 189.5 million so with that being said teams have to be very careful about who they decide to pay and Carl Anthony towns is currently making $36 million a year which doesn’t completely break the bank yet but next year that salary is going to Rocket to almost $50 million which means that Minnesota has a decision to make on whether or not they should lower their payroll in order to avoid the luxury tax alongside Anthony Edwards $42 million salary next year for making the all NBA and Rudy goar’s $44 million salary these three players alone will be responsible for about 135 million of a roster that will cost about $200 million which means if you want to keep these top three and keep Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley who are both on remarkable contracts Jaden McDaniels is making $22.6 million this year Mike Conley’s making $10 million this year the t-wolf starting five would make make about $167 million this season which is still short of the luxury tax line so you might be wondering Mike what’s the problem well there is a huge problem first of all there’s the additional players that are coming off the bench which will get you to about $200 million including the pending free agents which will mean that the franchise will then be a taxpaying team and would not only have them exceed the second apron but this would force the NBA to make Glenn Taylor pay $75 million and if you didn’t know Glen Taylor has barely spent $25 million on luxury tax throughout his entire career with less than 2 million of that coming since 2005 to even consider this as a possibility is absolutely uncured now taking all this into consideration alongside what we’ve seen of cat it’s only right for the Timberwolves to begin scouring the market to see what they could get for him which begs the question what could they actually get for him and even more important than that what could they get for him that could help them win right now because make no mistake about it this is not a team that wants to make moves to compete again in 2 or 3 years this is a team that would only make this move because they believe that the future is now and that the pieces obtained in returned would give them a better chance to win a title in 2025 or 2026 at the very latest when you have a generational Talent like Anthony Edwards the clock starts ticking from the very moment they show signs of playoff dominance and in case you’ve been living underneath the rock Anthony Edwards has been doing that so if that’s the case who should trade for cat well one option could be the Atlanta Hawks the Atlanta Hawks could unload Trey young and receive Carl Anthony towns a 2026 first round pick and a 2029 first round pick swap but that wouldn’t make a lot of sense because you’re essentially swapping out one star that’s making a significant amount of money for another player that makes a significant amount of money although it does allow Naas Reed to start and Trey young and Anthony Edwards sound like a remarkable back court even though Trey Young’s a defensive liability and wouldn’t really fit on the Minnesota Timberwolves that are very defensive minded so what about de jonte muray the Atlanta Hawks would receive Carl Anthony towns and the Minnesota Timberwolves would receive Deonte Murray and bdon bogdanovich bogdanovich could come off of the bench Deonte Murray fits into Chris Finch’s defensive philosophy it’d be a seamless fit for the Minnesota Timberwolves and it would be their dream scenario but let’s say you don’t want to do that what if you just want to get some good role players to bolster the bench and also get some assets for the future well the Brooklyn Nets come to mind you could trade Carl Anthony towns to the Brooklyn Nets for cam Johnson Dennis shudder Dron sharp a 2027 and 2029 first round pick swap that belongs to the Phoenix Suns and Believe Me by 2027 and 2029 I’m sure the Phoenix Suns are going to have a very valuable draft pick an interesting option could also be Brandon Ingram depending on the contract that he gets and Dyson Daniels going over to the Minnesota Timberwolves in return for Carl Anthony towns Brandon Ingram has always been long and boasted tremendous defensive potential maybe Chris Finch could unlock that and he could also share some of the scoring duties which is something that the Minnesota timber hols could desperately use this team needs some more help on offense without sacrificing too much defense there are other teams that could potentially trade for cat like the New York Knicks could trade Julius Randall for Carl Anthony towns and the Knicks have always been rumored to be interested in cat even as early as last year but obviously the dream scenario for the Timberwolves in this particular instance would be the Atlanta Hawks and dejonte Murray how big of a deal is this luxury tax situation well you have to consider the fact that the Minnesota Timberwolves are currently in the process of being sold Glen Taylor has always been a Frugal owner he’s been more focused on his team being profitable than his team winning championships and that’s not really a problem it sucks for fans but at the end of the day some owners do opt to run their team like a business as opposed to losing millions of dollars and watching their team win originally the plan was to sell the team to Alex Rodriguez and Mark lore but since they failed to submit their payments in time it now seems that it may never happen in the time since all of the drama surrounding the once guaranteed selling collapsed Glen Taylor actually came out and spoke about the subject why was it a threeyear process it was pretty simple negotiation I said that I’ll name the price and you can name the terms and I gave them a price and they accepted the price and they the terms were they would pay for it over 3 years we had a a contractual agreement and the agreement said that they in the first two years they would come in as limited partners and their how they would would uh U present their ability to be limited uh this payment would uh give them controlling interest and it’s a totally different process than being a limited partners and they had to do certain things to get there and and and they didn’t all these moving Parts the trade market for towns the luxury tax concerns the failed sale of the team the woses against the Dallas Mavericks one thing is for certain it is a wild time to be a Timberwolves fan after 20 years of pain they finally assert themselves as an upand cominging team and then the past catches up with them they are a prime example of how poor ownership can keep a team stuck at the bottom but luckily for them they have one of the best young players in the entire NBA they clearly nailed their head coaching hiring of Chris Finch and the defensive identity that he instilled into the Minnesota Timberwolves worked perfectly they just need a little bit more help offensively without sacrificing that defense and most importantly the architect of this team is under contract for the foreseeable future the question now seems to be whether or not not Anthony Edwards becomes great enough to counter all the Damage Done by Decades of inep leadership and if he can lead the Minnesota timber to their first ever NBA championship regardless of the off the court drama whether they go after this goal with or without Carl Anthony towns is only the first order of business and we should find out what their decision is within the next two weeks but Carl Anthony towns isn’t the only individual that is on the trade block there’s a huge question of what Paul George’s future is going to look like with the Los Angeles Clippers they they are lowballing Paul George and they’re paying kawh Leonard more than him despite Paul George playing in more games he is without a doubt the hottest free agent on the market right now and the Clippers are playing a gigantic game of chicken with him so what are they going to do well we have a whole video on that and I’ll leave it in the end screen as well as a video on Klay Thompson for you guys to check out because I don’t think he’s returning to the Warriors I’ll meet you guys there and aside from that I’m your boy Mike I’m dropping her mic until our next upload

The Minnesota Timberwolves are on the cusp of being in luxury tax hell. So they have a decision to make: Do they trade Karl Anthony Towns? Or Rudy Gobert?
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