Rudy extension

[FNG]

I’m in the “very good deal” camp. I can get as frustrated as most hete with Rudy’s bad hands, but I also see how our defense falls apart almost every time he leaves the court. Getting the reigning DPOY for Jalen Suggs money is another TC coup. I think our chances of winning a championship in the next three years got better yesterday.

[Q-is-here]

I’m in the “very good deal” camp. I can get as frustrated as most hete with Rudy’s bad hands, but I also see how our defense falls apart almost every time he leaves the court. Getting the reigning DPOY for Jalen Suggs money is another TC coup. I think our chances of winning a championship in the next three years got better yesterday.

I've been a Rudy skeptic in terms of what ceiling this team achieves with him as its Center (realizing full well that he raised the floor considerably). But after I saw the On/Off and lineup numbers from last season's playoffs with him on the court, the data just overwhelmed my argument.

[60WinTim]

Bobby Marks posted the numbers: 35 mil in '25-26, 36.5 mil in '26-27, and 38 mil in '27-28 which includes a player option.

So we have a few years to find a Rudy replacement for ANT's prime years. Someone other than Jesse Edwards...

[Monster]

I think this a good and pretty fair deal for both Gobert and the Wolves. Gobert gave up around 13 million next season to make 2 more seasons in the upper 30's. I helps the Wolves financial situation next year. Could Rudy have taken even less? Sure I guess but he would have really wanted to take a discount to take much less than like 105 million over 3 years considering his player option was over 46 million.

Will any other players at some point be willing to lock themselves into this team for a bit of a discount? We will see.

I'll add that signing Rudy to this fairly reasonable extension including clearing out that 46 million player option makes the Gobert trade look better.

[Monster]

If the extension is structured as a normal NBA contract, the first year would start at 34 mil with 8% raises the next two years. That's roughly a 12.5 mil savings for next year's cap. The Wolves would be just into the luxury tax, but well under the 1st and 2nd aprons. Although they'll to figure out a NAZ extension, along with adding a couple more bodies to the roster...

Not sure about your math. With Rudy’s new contract, the Wolves will have a guaranteed payroll next season of $186.52 million for 12 players without NAW, assuming Naz and Randle exercise their player options. That’s only about $2.5 million below the current second apron. The NBA cap went up 3.4% from last year to this year. Assuming the cap goes up by the max 10% (which is really optimistic), the new second apron threshold would be $207.79 million. Keeping Naz will likely require an additional $10 million (putting him at $25M next season). That would put the Wolves payroll at $196.52 million with 12 players. Keeping NAW would obviously put us over the second apron again since I can’t see signing him at a salary of less than $10 million per year. If we let NAW go and signed two minimum vet players, it would add 4 million to our payroll and put us at $200.52M. That would put us over the 1st apron of $195.94M (assuming a 10% increase in the cap)

Bottom line is that this team will remain above the 1st apron next season and will be hard pressed to get below the 2nd apron even with the new Rudy contract unless we let NAW go AND either pass on re-signing Naz or trade Randle for salary savings. The Rudy deal opens the door ever so slightly to getting below the 2nd apron, but it will still be very challenging. There’s no way we’ll get below the 1st apron unless we blow it up after this season. My prediction is that either Naz or Randle will play somewhere else next season.

Lip you are forgetting that 2025-2026 in when the new TV deal kicks in. The cap is gonna go up that 10 percent.

It's pretty obvious the Wolves are gonna do whatever it takes within reason to keep Naz and it seems like Naz wants to stay. The questions are what happens with NAW and or Randle. After looking u derwhelming in preseason NAW has been pretty good in the first 3 games. How well will he have played once the calendar turns to 2025? What kind of role does he see for himself here or otherwise? Same with Randle.