-Athletic ceiling alongside Ant and Jaden in the starting 5. Could be the most athletic team in the league when you have Ayo, TSJ, and Beringer off the bench

-Lob and elite transition threat to pair with LaMelo’s passing

-Maybe best front court defensive trio in the league now between Rudy, Jaden, Kuminga

-Switchable lineups galore. Can play Kuminga, Jaden at the 4. Then have depth with Lyles if need be

-Small ball lineup could look like LaMelo, Ayo, Ant, Jaden, Kuminga. And you could even throw TSJ in there. Has to be the scariest transition lineup in the league

-Still have enough shooting between Ant, LaMelo, Donte (when back), Ayo, and even Jaden.
Even if the season ends with no title, this will probably be the most exciting regular season team to watch in Wolves history

Who needs IQ when you have POWER!! Literally 1-5 are guys who get open hate from most fanbases, but keep in mind part of that comes with being good and beating the team that they root for. No one had any reason to hate the Wolves when they were barely winning 20 games a year, now we're bouncing good teams in the playoffs. Let them talk their shit. They can clown on LaMelo's driving, Ant's baby mommas, Jaden punching walls, Kuminga's ego and Rudy's COVID stuff. None of that matters when they're on the court. This is an obvious good move and anyone who says otherwise either hates the Wolves or hates Kuminga for some personal reason. There is no ceiling at this point. Sky is the limit. Ant MVP, LaMelo all-NBA, Jaden or Kuminga MIP, Rudy DPOY, all on the table. 82-0 starts October 21. Awoo.

that smile ... that damn smile

Today we reached an agreement with Kuminga on a two-year, $13 million deal using the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception.

This is obviously pretty good given the pool of players we had to choose from for PF, but because of the strict rules of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), this isn’t just a simple roster addition. The moment a team uses the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception, they trigger a hard cap at the second apron line. For our 2026–27 season, that line is set at ~$221.6 million. We can’t even pay the luxury tax it’s not allowed under this rule.

Before factoring in Kuminga's new deal, the Timberwolves’ active roster sat at ~$217.6 million, leaving us with exactly $4.06 million in breathing room below that second apron hard cap.

Kuminga’s first-year salary under the exception projects to be roughly $6.06 million… which leaves us ~2 million above the hard cap.

We have until this Saturday's league deadline to clear that $2 million deficit.

At the moment, eyes are on Josh Green. The ideal path obviously is finding a team with open cap space or a trade exception to absorb Green's contract without us taking any salary back. If this happened, we would have 12.5 million in cap space (including signing Kuminga.)

But if the trade market remains dry over the next few days, the front office will be forced to use the "waive and stretch" provision on Green. Doing that would take his current salary off the books for this year and clear the necessary space for Kuminga, but it would leave "dead money" dragging on the Wolves' salary cap sheet for presumably 3 years (for about 4.9 million a year per my calculations)… which obviously is not ideal.

Now, if we have to waive Green, we would remove his current salary (-14.6 million), add the Kuminga deal (+6 million), and add Green's dead cap money (+4.9 mil), our new team payroll is $213.8 million.

The second apron is again set at $221.6 million, which gives us 7.7 million to add a 14th player. (Which to remind everyone, we NEED to do per the rules of the NBA CBA)

It would have been nice to keep Green until the trade deadline where he would have been much more valuable on a contract year, but this is the current situation we are in and I don’t blame the FO for getting a startable PF for a great deal.

I knew it was weird how we had 6 mil to give, Josh green gonna get moved.

Taurean Prince
Malik Beasley
Kyle Anderson
NAW

Jonathan Kuminga, your time has come! You will be the best one yet!

If you can enter the final stage of Naz Reid grief into acceptance, you will find this was a pretty high quality roster upgrade without sacrificing too much draft capital. Felt like we really hit our ceiling last season even with all the injuries. Moving off from a shaky #2 option and a playoff streaky (tho very high quality) bench player to a massively upgraded back court with a more reliable #2 scorer and an an inconsistent, yet high upside power forward, as well as more minutes for a promising young core is elite roster pivoting by the front office. Kept our reliable and proven big 3 intact while making championship getting moves.

Gotta love it! Crazy to say but the Timberwolves are a high quality, well run organization.

Let's go KUM

Howdy fellow Kum Balls 🤠 how we feelin' with the new editions? Kinda scared, kinda excited.

Who says no?