Dane Moore

Today's show w/ Chris Finch

- What the summer has looked like for Finch and the Wolves as a team
- The addition of LaMelo Ball
- Anthony Edwards becoming a leader and moving back to shooting guard, "where he belongs"
- Coaching Rudy Gobert and the Wolves team trip to Paris this summer
- Finch on being an "outsider" as a coach and betting on yourself

Because the Wolves would need cap space to offer Kuminga anything over $16M (the MLE), and they're already $25M over the cap for next season with the 8 players who are under contract for next season.

If the Wolves wanted to give Kuminga say $25M in salary for next season, they would need to shed $50M in salary before being allowed to offer that $25M to Kuminga. And they don't have picks to add to incentivize teams taking on money.

But yes, the Wolves could theoretically off load Gobert's salary for next season ($38M) to a team with $38M+ of cap space and take back no money. Might be hard to do, but theoretically possible. Or Gobert could opt out of his $38M player option entirely and sign elsewhere. If that somehow happened, they would then still need to shed an additional $12M to create that space -- with the options for shedding salary being Edwards ($52M), Ball ($44M), McDaniels ($28M), Dosunmu ($21M), Beringer ($5M), Shannon ($5M), Clark ($3M), Evans ($2M). And any players they send out, they would be required to replace, because teams are required to roster a minimum of 14 players.

Additionally, DiVincenzo, Williams, Hyland and Lyles will be free agents. So that's why I didn't mention moving off Rudy as an option.

There are two paths to the Wolves re-signing Jonathan Kuminga -- and given the way he's playing right now, both seem like long shots.

1. The Wolves shed enough salary elsewhere to get $16M below the 1st apron, so they are able to offer Kuminga the $16M mid-level exception (up to 4 years, $70M if he wants to sign long-term).

- Problem with this one is if Kuminga has offers for more than $16M the Wolves do not have the means to match that market value. Signing Kuminga to the mid-level exception would also hard-cap the Wolves at the 1st apron.

2. Kuminga signs another 1-year, cheap deal with non-bird rights ($7.5M -- 120% of his current salary) or with the mid-level exception ($16M), with the idea that after another year he would acquire what are called early bird rights that come with being on a team for two seasons. If Kuminga gets those early bird rights, starting in the 2028-29 season, the Wolves could offer him a 4-year, $125M contract.

- Problem with this one is that it would require the patience to turn down bigger money and longer term offers next summer. The Wolves also already have $154M dedicated to just Edwards ($56M), Ball ($46M), McDaniels ($30M) and Dosunmu ($22M) for the 28-29 season. Signing Kuminga to that deal would put the Wolves over the salary cap for that season with just five contracts. And would that be enough for Kuminga? In 28-29, that 4-year, $125M contract will be about half of the max he could get offered on the market as an unrestricted free agent.

Good recap from Tim here about what I talked about on the show today.

This stuff is better explained in writing.

Trey Lyles has been excellent.

Finch gave him a 30-second rest, but has played him straight through the entire 2nd half other than that.