Minnesota Timberwolves: The case to let Juancho Hernangomez walk in free agency

At the trade deadline the Minnesota Timberwolves acquired a pair of soon to be restricted free agents, Juancho Hernangomez and Malik Beasley.

Juancho Hernangomez, Malik Beasley, and Jordan McLaughlin are all going to hit the market this off-season as restricted free agents for the Minnesota Timberwolves.  Malik Beasley has played himself into a key role going forward.  He is likely the team’s third option offensively and has potential to be special for the team.

Juancho Hernangomez has given the Wolves steady play as well, however, when star center Karl-Anthony Towns comes back the team will likely need a stronger defender and rebounder playing next to him.  Jordan McLaughlin burst onto the scene and while point guard is one of the deepest positions in the game right now, it’s hard to imagine that McLaughlin isn’t back next season as well.

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When factoring in their likely fits/roles of the team on top of what the players will likely earn (Beasley $13-18 million, Hernangomez $6-10 million, McLaughlin vet minimum-$3 million), it could be easiest to see that Hernangomez is the easiest to cut ties with and save the team the most money.

The thing that makes Hernangomez easiest to move on from (aside from the team’s need of defense) is that there is a host of positional talent and/or fit upgrades.  There are guys in the draft like Onyeka Okungwu, Patrick Williams, and James Wiseman who could each bring different things to the table, but most importantly strong defensive potential.

There are also players in free agency like Derrick Jones Jr, Jerami Grant, and Derrick Favors.  There are trade targets that will likely be available like Aaron Gordon, Thaddeus Young, or Larry Nance Jr.  Lastly, there’s even potential avenues of finding talent already within the organization like Jarred Vanderbilt and sixth man James Johnson.

To further expand on the team’s largest off-season priority being defense, there’s a small chance that D’Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns buy-in on that end and become average to above-average defenders, however, that’s not something the team should put all of their hopes in.  With the big man position being the most important spot on defense and the team already having defenders at the non-Towns/Russell spots in Josh Okogie, Jarrett Culver, and potentially the last remaining restricted free agent Kelan Martin, the biggest spot to address is power forward.

The new power forward should be able to have the size/strength to match up with centers or larger power forwards on switches, similar to back up power forward James Johnson.  Hernangomez doesn’t have that ability, unfortunately, being more of a small forward/power forward than a center, and someone like the aforementioned hyper-athletic Aaron Gordon or future rookie Onyeka Okongwu could help more in this case and both players could even play spot center minutes in the team’s system.

Fortunately for the Minnesota Timberwolves, they’ll be one of the few teams with the best avenues of acquiring talent this off-season.  They have the best set of draft picks in the draft, a contract large enough to function as a salary ballast that helps get you close to a lot of starting level salaries in James Johnson’s deal, and they’re one of a small handful of teams that can offer free agent the full non-tax payer mid-level exception.