The Wolves Salary Cap Problem

[Q-is-here]

Q when it comes to Beverly if we added him it would be as a bench guy not a starter. Lip mentioned giving him the BAE. That’s the most I would offer him as well and test whether he REALLY wants to come back. With that cost and expectation it might be a good signing. Something to consider Beverly who didn’t take many shots did shot a career best from 2 last year. He ended up shooting not terrible from 3 but that’s now 2 years in a row of him shooting under 35% after that being a strength of his game. I think the biggest question is whether the Wolves should sign a vet like that or use that roster spot on someone they hope can be someone around for more than another year or two. I tend to lean towards the later. The Wolves could probably use one more vet on the roster though.

I’ll also add to what you said that the Wolves winning 42 game this year playing without Towns for over 50 games is likely more impressive than their 46 wins the pervious year. With some sort of reasonable health the Wolves could have easily won what another 4-8 games? What about if they were healthy for the playoffs? If the Wolves simply run it back (without making any massive moves) they aren’t running back a 42 win team they are better than that. How much better? Idk but adding to the roster could make a big difference. Look at what the Nuggets did in the offseason. KCP and Bruce Brown were pretty big additions.

We have our wise vet PG in Conley, so I don't see the need for someone like PBev. We need to cast the net far and wide to find someone to backup Conley. I don't think PatBev is the answer, as much as I really admired what he did for us two seasons ago.

As for Denver, the #1 thing they did this past season was....get healthy. And the #2 thing they did was add a couple of good 3&D guards in KCP and Brown, as you alluded to. You just can't have enough 3&D players on your roster. When opposing playoff teams start sending two guys at your star(s), you absolutely MUST have players that can cash in from 3. KCP and Brown are just delivering dagger after dagger to teams that double off of them.

Q I wouldn’t really call Bruce Brown a 3 and D guy really. Before this season his 3 point percentage was up and down and it was on pretty low volume. That volume ticked up this season hit still pretty low for a guy that’s a 3 and D guy he is shooting under 30% on 3’s in the playoffs and is 4-10 in series against the Lakers. I believe your point was actually much more about the value of players they added this offseason specifically 2-way guys. Brown is Denver’s backup PG and he can defend SFs at times. He is kinda thier version of Kyle Anderson in terms of impact and value. We need to hope to find a guy like that and NAW COULD be someone like that. It’s a bit of a high hope but not wildly out of the realm of possibility. Again the Wolves need to upgrade their roster in terms of depth. It’s pretty obvious to me that we don’t HAVE to have FA money or draft picks to trade to do so. This is part of why Connelly was brought here was to find talent outside of spending money and high draft picks.

Yeah, I know Bruce Brown isn't an elite 3&D guard, but I guess my point is he's good enough to be respected from out there. He's not like Vando or Josh Okogie where teams will on purposely not guard them and literally beg them to shoot.

And you are right about NAW. He seems to fit the archetype of a 3&D guard and he embraced that kind of role in our brief playoff run this season. I can't say I am 100% confident in him yet, but he definitely knows his role.

[kekgeek]

I don’t think people realize how fucked the wolves are financially for the 2024-25 season. They are not in a great spot this year but they can make it work.

The 2nd lux tax line is going to be around 180 million. This is where all the punishments come in from can only sign Min guys, can’t add more salary in trades, can’t trade money, can’t participate in buyout market, can’t trade future picks more than 6 years out, plus the owners getting taxed more.

So here is the wolves money situation in 24-25
Kat: 50 million
Rudy: 44 million
Ant: 33 million (can go to about 42 if he makes all NBA)
Mcdaniels: 20 million
Naz: 12 million
NAW: 6 million
Minott/Moore: 4 million total.

For a total of 169 million, so 11 million to fill so 8 roster spots and only about 2 million if Ant makes All NBA and that is assuming Mcdaniels doesn’t make more than 20 what he easily does.

That is losing Conley, Prince, slow Mo for nothing.


Kat or Gobert are gone before the 24-25 season at the latest. Wolves are in so much trouble with this CBA. You can pay 2 stars and I don’t know if either Kat or Gobert are a good enough 2nd star but we for sure can’t keep all 3.

[Q-is-here]

I don’t think people realize how fucked the wolves are financially for the 2024-25 season. They are not in a great spot this year but they can make it work.

The 2nd lux tax line is going to be around 180 million. This is where all the punishments come in from can only sign Min guys, can’t add more salary in trades, can’t trade money, can’t participate in buyout market, can’t trade future picks more than 6 years out, plus the owners getting taxed more.

So here is the wolves money situation in 24-25
Kat: 50 million
Rudy: 44 million
Ant: 33 million (can go to about 42 if he makes all NBA)
Mcdaniels: 20 million
Naz: 12 million
NAW: 6 million
Minott/Moore: 4 million total.

For a total of 169 million, so 11 million to fill so 8 roster spots and only about 2 million if Ant makes All NBA and that is assuming Mcdaniels doesn’t make more than 20 what he easily does.

That is losing Conley, Prince, slow Mo for nothing.


Kat or Gobert are gone before the 24-25 season at the latest. Wolves are in so much trouble with this CBA. You can pay 2 stars and I don’t know if either Kat or Gobert are a good enough 2nd star but we for sure can’t keep all 3.

Yeah, I think this is slowly dawning on a lot of folks, including people that want to run it all back next year.

If the goal is to run it back next (meaning KAT and Gobert stay), isn't one thing we can do right away is simply not re-sign Naz? It seems absurd to pay that much for a backup big these days when we'd already have 90+M invested in Rudy and KAT! Or may be we sign him for just one year at an inflated price?

[TheFuture]

The salary cap problem is directly related to KAT. The gobert trade was to cover for KAT's deficiencies.

The only question that has to be answered is this: Is KAT a player worth 1/3 of your cap? I can already say I would pay 50 mil for ANT before I would pay KAT that amount. That's a serious problem for the FO and it seems to be a struggle for much of the fanbase.

[Lipoli390]

I don’t think people realize how fucked the wolves are financially for the 2024-25 season. They are not in a great spot this year but they can make it work.

The 2nd lux tax line is going to be around 180 million. This is where all the punishments come in from can only sign Min guys, can’t add more salary in trades, can’t trade money, can’t participate in buyout market, can’t trade future picks more than 6 years out, plus the owners getting taxed more.

So here is the wolves money situation in 24-25
Kat: 50 million
Rudy: 44 million
Ant: 33 million (can go to about 42 if he makes all NBA)
Mcdaniels: 20 million
Naz: 12 million
NAW: 6 million
Minott/Moore: 4 million total.

For a total of 169 million, so 11 million to fill so 8 roster spots and only about 2 million if Ant makes All NBA and that is assuming Mcdaniels doesn’t make more than 20 what he easily does.

That is losing Conley, Prince, slow Mo for nothing.


Kat or Gobert are gone before the 24-25 season at the latest. Wolves are in so much trouble with this CBA. You can pay 2 stars and I don’t know if either Kat or Gobert are a good enough 2nd star but we for sure can’t keep all 3.

Absolutely right about being in a lot of trouble under the CBA, Kek. That’s why I started this thread, even before we started to see write-ups on line. The only caveat I’d offer in response to your post is that we absolutely do know that Gobert isn’t good enough to be a second star. He isn’t remotely close! As for KAT, I agree we don’t know. I think he can be given his full panoply of talent and skill, but I also acknowledge that he has yet to prove it.

Insiders, including NBA front office executives certainly knew or should have known that the current CBA penalties were possible. Even those of us on the outside heard or read reports about the League pushing for a hard cap or other things to rein in teams going way over the luxury tax threshold. What we know now makes the organization’s decision to do the Gobert deal even more dubious. I’ll stop there with my look backwards except to say that I seriously question the judgment of our current front office going forward

Looking forward, it simply doesn’t make sense to keep both Rudy and KAT. Yes, we could bring both back for another season, but to what end? TC recently said that every decision going forward is about building around Ant. If so, then next season isn’t the key; it’s the many seasons thereafter with Ant and Jaden. I like Cool’s phrase, “cash out now” his argument for trading KAT. I definitely see the argument for trading KAT, but I think Cool’s phrase applies to Rudy as well. Is Rudy’s trade value far less than KAT’s value or the value we gave up to get him? Absolutely. But Rudy’s value was much lower than what we gave up the minute the deal was done. That’s how dumb the deal was. But the point is that Rudy’s value won’t go up significantly if at all as he advances into his 30s. In fact, his value could easily diminish further and he’s one major injury from being a $40 million dollar hit to the payroll with no market value whatsoever. In contrast, if KAT stays healthy next season I suspect his value will go a bit higher in spite of his higher salary match next summer.

Beyond debating which one we should trade, I’m coming around to concluding that I’d prefer trading KAT to keeping both bigs next season. Up until now, I’ve strongly favored trading Rudy this summer with keeping both as my second choice over trading KAT. But I’m close to preferring a KAT trade over doing nothing.

[Lipoli390]

The salary cap problem is directly related to KAT. The gobert trade was to cover for KAT's deficiencies.

The only question that has to be answered is this: Is KAT a player worth 1/3 of your cap? I can already say I would pay 50 mil for ANT before I would pay KAT that amount. That's a serious problem for the FO and it seems to be a struggle for much of the fanbase.

We won 46 games and took Memphis to 6 games in spite of KAT’s deficiencies without Slo Mo or Conley and when Ant and Jaden weren’t nearly as good as they were last season when they and Slo Mo combined with Rudy as our center for 42 wins. There were far, far cheaper and smarter ways to compensate for KAT’s deficiencies. It was the stupidity of trading all those assets for a supermax player like Rudy that put us in this position where we really have to trade KAT or put Rudy on the resale market. The Wolves organization certainly knew they were going to give KAT a supermax contract when they traded for Rudy and they had to know of the possibility that the new CBA was going to make it far more difficult to significantly exceed the luxury tax threshold. If we can get a Durant type deal for KAT, then the Wolves should absolutely trade him. But if it’s just a trade for Scoot and his yellow flags along with a couple future picks, then I say no.

[TheFuture]

The salary cap problem is directly related to KAT. The gobert trade was to cover for KAT's deficiencies.

The only question that has to be answered is this: Is KAT a player worth 1/3 of your cap? I can already say I would pay 50 mil for ANT before I would pay KAT that amount. That's a serious problem for the FO and it seems to be a struggle for much of the fanbase.

We won 46 games and took Memphis to 6 games in spite of KAT’s deficiencies without Slo Mo or Conley and when Ant and Jaden weren’t nearly as good as they were last season when they and Slo Mo combined with Rudy as our center for 42 wins. There were far, far cheaper and smarter ways to compensate for KAT’s deficiencies. It was the stupidity of trading all those assets for a supermax player like Rudy that put us in this position where we really have to trade KAT or put Rudy on the resale market. The Wolves organization certainly knew they were going to give KAT a supermax contract when they traded for Rudy and they had to know of the possibility that the new CBA was going to make it far more difficult to significantly exceed the luxury tax threshold. If we can get a Durant type deal for KAT, then the Wolves should absolutely trade him. But if it’s just a trade for Scoot and his yellow flags along with a couple future picks, then I say no.

Agreed on all accounts.

[kekgeek]

I think pretty much Kat needs to be traded this summer because of the new CBA. That is not to say Kat isn’t a good player but he probably gives the wolves the best chance at getting potentially good pieces back in a trade. It is easier to trade Kat before his big extension kicks in, other teams won’t need to match that 14 extra million the wolves next year. It also allows the wolves for a full reset in 26-27 season financially when Rudy becomes a FA. While with Kat they can’t financially reset until the 28-29 season due to his contract.


I will say this new CBA in my opinion kills Kats trade value. First off there are going to be like 5-8 teams projected over the 2nd tier lux tax making they need to send out more than 50 million to acquire Kat what is really hard, so the CBA eliminated trade possibilities. Also teams can no longer trade for Kat to be their 3rd option. CBA killed the 3 max players thing. Why would any team trade for Kat in the new CBA. He would have to be that teams 2nd star and Kat has not proven at all he can be the 2nd best player on a really good team, he might be capable of that but why would any team risk the cap hell Kat could put them in when they don’t know if he can be a top 2 player on a title team or even a 2nd round team. It was so much easier in the old CBA to trade for Kat and gamble on him being the 3rd piece. You can’t do that anymore in the new CBA. In my opinion Kat value got destroyed in new CBA and that is not a diss about Kat talent it’s about roster management and I don’t see a team locking themselves into Kat when you can’t add a 3rd star at any point into the equation.


This new CBA actually sucks for 95% of players. It killed the middle tier of players. Each team will have 2 max players, 1 20-25 million guy and the rest under 10 million. That 10-20 million player will make so much less due to the punishments of the lux tax. They killed the middle class.

The other thing what fucking suck is developing your own talent is a detriment to that team. The wolves are so fucked financially of Ant makes all nba, they can’t afford another super max. Ant being great next season really hurts the wolves long term in roster construction around Ant what is fucking stupid.

To go along with my paragraph above the Celtics are going to have to decide between super maxing Brown and lose 2/3 of White, Smart, Brogdon. Or keep those 3 and loose Brown. Brown making all nba screws the great team building the Celtics have done.

Warriors will have to offload Poole or Wiggins this offseason and get no salary in return back. Lakers will lose either Reeves or Rui to bring in Kyrie because of the CBA.

In the new CBA acquisition like Brogdon, Gallo (was hurt), Donte D., K love, Caleb Martin, Westbrook would not be legal under the new CBA.

Teams who are building smart like the Thunder are now in some trouble. Shai will more than likely be super max eligible, if he does, the Thunder will be unable to keep 2 of Chet, Giddy, J. Williams if they develop into near max players. What is so stupid. It’s punishing teams for developing their own talent.

In the end this CBA will be good for league parity and those super max caliber players. It is super shitty for roster construction, developing good young talent, 95% of players salaries and team continuity.

Sorry for the rant but because of these shit punishments to the CBA Kat should be gone not because of his talents but because he was just good enough to make all nba but not good to be a MVP guy so the wolves will get punished for Kat loyalty of being the only 2nd #1 overall pick since Tim Duncan to play 9 consecutive years with the team that drafted him.

[Phenom]

The max market will become much more competitive this way. Teams will need to think a lot harder about who they give max money to and it will mean a lot of tier below guys will be changing teams. The league likes player movement and this will keep it interesting. It should also make it harder to have the really really good sustained teams and the really really bad teams.

I enjoyed the standings cluster this past year and could see it being similar from now on.

[Lipoli390]

I think pretty much Kat needs to be traded this summer because of the new CBA. That is not to say Kat isn’t a good player but he probably gives the wolves the best chance at getting potentially good pieces back in a trade. It is easier to trade Kat before his big extension kicks in, other teams won’t need to match that 14 extra million the wolves next year. It also allows the wolves for a full reset in 26-27 season financially when Rudy becomes a FA. While with Kat they can’t financially reset until the 28-29 season due to his contract.


I will say this new CBA in my opinion kills Kats trade value. First off there are going to be like 5-8 teams projected over the 2nd tier lux tax making they need to send out more than 50 million to acquire Kat what is really hard, so the CBA eliminated trade possibilities. Also teams can no longer trade for Kat to be their 3rd option. CBA killed the 3 max players thing. Why would any team trade for Kat in the new CBA. He would have to be that teams 2nd star and Kat has not proven at all he can be the 2nd best player on a really good team, he might be capable of that but why would any team risk the cap hell Kat could put them in when they don’t know if he can be a top 2 player on a title team or even a 2nd round team. It was so much easier in the old CBA to trade for Kat and gamble on him being the 3rd piece. You can’t do that anymore in the new CBA. In my opinion Kat value got destroyed in new CBA and that is not a diss about Kat talent it’s about roster management and I don’t see a team locking themselves into Kat when you can’t add a 3rd star at any point into the equation.


This new CBA actually sucks for 95% of players. It killed the middle tier of players. Each team will have 2 max players, 1 20-25 million guy and the rest under 10 million. That 10-20 million player will make so much less due to the punishments of the lux tax. They killed the middle class.

The other thing what fucking suck is developing your own talent is a detriment to that team. The wolves are so fucked financially of Ant makes all nba, they can’t afford another super max. Ant being great next season really hurts the wolves long term in roster construction around Ant what is fucking stupid.

To go along with my paragraph above the Celtics are going to have to decide between super maxing Brown and lose 2/3 of White, Smart, Brogdon. Or keep those 3 and loose Brown. Brown making all nba screws the great team building the Celtics have done.

Warriors will have to offload Poole or Wiggins this offseason and get no salary in return back. Lakers will lose either Reeves or Rui to bring in Kyrie because of the CBA.

In the new CBA acquisition like Brogdon, Gallo (was hurt), Donte D., K love, Caleb Martin, Westbrook would not be legal under the new CBA.

Teams who are building smart like the Thunder are now in some trouble. Shai will more than likely be super max eligible, if he does, the Thunder will be unable to keep 2 of Chet, Giddy, J. Williams if they develop into near max players. What is so stupid. It’s punishing teams for developing their own talent.

In the end this CBA will be good for league parity and those super max caliber players. It is super shitty for roster construction, developing good young talent, 95% of players salaries and team continuity.

Sorry for the rant but because of these shit punishments to the CBA Kat should be gone not because of his talents but because he was just good enough to make all nba but not good to be a MVP guy so the wolves will get punished for Kat loyalty of being the only 2nd #1 overall pick since Tim Duncan to play 9 consecutive years with the team that drafted him.

Kek - Great analysis, kek. I share your disdain for the impact the new CBA will have on teams that build and develop their own players.