The Timberwolves will have to make contract decisions sooner or later, including whether to extend center and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert.
It’s no secret that the Timberwolves are in a tough spot with the salary cap this season, currently $17 million above the second apron, according to spotrac.com. Even if that problem can’t be solved this year, restructuring Gobert’s contract could help the Wolves avoid a second term next season.
Gobert, 32, is set to make $44 million this season and has a player option — which he would almost certainly accept — worth more than $46 million for 2025-26. With the Wolves stuck above the second apron this season and facing the luxury tax, extending Gobert could be their most elegant solution to getting back below the second apron and starting the process of getting below the luxury tax.
If the Wolves were to offer Gobert an extension, it could restructure his contract in a way that would significantly reduce his $46 million price tag in 2025-26, with Gobert getting the security of several more years on his deal in exchange. Darren Wolfson of KSTP reiterated on SKOR North THURSDAY “There is a definite mutual interest” in working out an extension to keep Gobert in Minneapolis.
Reducing Gobert’s salary cap hit next season could be beneficial for the Timberwolves, as Karl-Anthony Towns is set to make $53 million in 2025-26; Anthony Edwards will make over $45 million that season; and Jaden McDaniels has a $25 million salary cap hit on his contract. Add in Gobert’s $46 million player option, and those four contracts alone are already over the projected salary cap hit next season.
And that doesn’t include decisions the Wolves will have to make elsewhere on the roster. Naz Reid has a $15 million player option for 2025-26, but Minnesota might want to consider extending his contract this offseason because Reid could make a lot more by declining that option and signing elsewhere. Along with Reid, Nickeil Alexander-Walker will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.
But hypothetically, if Gobert and Reid both accepted their player options for next season and the Wolves let Alexander-Walker go, they would still be nearly $6 million above the projected second apron.
This brings us to the Gobert extension. While Gobert is max eligible, The Athletic It was projected in July that the Wolves could seek to inject around $100 million into a Gobert extension that could reduce his salary cap hit in 2025-26 to $32.5 million. This would bring them below the second apron.
If Reid declines his option and the Wolves let him go, that would put them under the first apron. But if the Wolves aren’t willing to part ways with the Sixth Man of the Year, the question would be whether they could extend both him and Gobert and stay under the second apron, which could be important because the new collective bargaining agreement has stiff penalties for teams that stay above for multiple seasons.
Another approach could be for the Wolves to take the bull by the horns and let Gobert accept his player option for 2025-26, putting them above the second apron for the second straight year. That would depend on how severe the new sanctions they deem appropriate, including automatically moving their first-round pick seven years later to the end of the first round. But that would leave few commitments beyond 25-26.
The Wolves could extend their contracts beyond the second apron for an additional year, by signing key reserves like Reid and Alexander-Walker. Currently, they only have six contracts that extend through the 2026-27 season, three of them big-money deals for Towns, Edwards and McDaniels and the other three are rookie deals for Rob Dillingham, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Leonard Miller.
That would give them plenty of wiggle room going forward. But they would also have to factor in the penalties they would receive in the meantime and the prospect of being without Gobert, who averaged 14 points, 12.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game last season while earning his fourth DPOY. And Gobert has proven to be a crucial piece of a team that is knocking on the door of an NBA title.
