Minnesota Timberwolves: 5 bargain bin targets in 2019 NBA free agency

With 2019 NBA free agency looming, the Minnesota Timberwolves are looking for a few players that can add value to the team without breaking the bank.

The Minnesota Timberwolves are not exactly rolling in cash to start 2019 NBA free agency. Minnesota has seven players under contract — Andrew Wiggins, Jeff Teague, Robert Covington, Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Okogie, Keita Bates-Diop and Gorgei Dieng. The problem comes when you realize that those seven players take up nearly 90 percent of the team’s cap space.

To break it down fairly simply, a generous guess says that the Wolves have around $20 million to spend, with exceptions. However, those exceptions only come under a few conditions. Mainly, they have the cap holds of Taj Gibson ($18.2 million), Jerryd Bayless ($16.3 million), Anthony Tolliver ($6.9 million) and Tyus Jones ($7.3 million) to deal with.

The Wolves have already tendered Jones with a qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent, but renouncing Gibson, Bayless and Tolliver could free up considerable space if the team doesn’t have plans to re-sign them.

After that, you have the problem of Jarrett Culver and Jaylen Nowell’s rookie contracts. Culver will make $4.8 million next year, while Nowell is a second round addition.

While that might sound bad, there are a few bright spots for the Timberwolves. To start with, the nine players that the Wolves have under contract make a pretty solid rotation, which could look something like this:

• PG: Jeff Teague
• SG: Josh Okogie, Jarrett Culver
• SF: Andrew Wiggins, Jaylen Nowell
• PF: Robert Covington, Keita Bates-Diop
• C: Karl-Anthony Towns, Gorgui Dieng

Along with that, the Wolves do have the Bird rights to Jones, which means that they can go over the cap limit to sign him. With all of this, let’s take a look and see who the Wolves can try and get for cheap this summer.