If Tom Thibodeau had the ability to take a do-over on just one of his team’s sub-optimal contracts it would have the potential to completely shift the trajectory of the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise. It’s the opportunity to say: We did our due diligence at the time but, now, that choice to sign player X isn’t looking great. Can we try again? — that would be a game changer.
What if the Wolves could take a mulligan on five years and $147 million to Andrew Wiggins, the three years and $50 million that remain on Gorgui Dieng’s deal or even the two years and $38 million left on Jeff Teague’s? How would that affect the Wolves future?
And maybe more intriguing: Who would they choose if they could only pick one?
There is a real-life example of this thought exercise in practice: In the summer of 2011, the league became flooded with bad contracts and all 30 teams were granted a single mulligan called the amnesty provision. This clause in the league’s collective bargaining agreement granted each team one get-out-jail-free card — fair game to be used on any contract signed before 2011.
When this card was played, the franchise who amnestied the player was still required to pay their chosen amnesty subject the entirety of their salary but, for bookkeeping reasons, the team was completely absolved of the salary cap restrictions from that salary.
Essentially, teams were given the opportunity to buy themselves cap space.
The History of the Amnesty
For the Timberwolves, their general manager from 2009-13, David Kahn, used the team’s amnesty provision on the two years and $8 million left of Darko Milicic’s contract. This came two summers after Kahn referred to Milicic as “manna from heaven” while comparing the big man’s passing ability to Chris Webber’s (when being interviewed by Webber himself).
Many of the 21 players who were amnestied share a similar sentiment of comedy and, in many cases, much more than $8 million in written off money.
Some amnesty examples:
Gilbert Arenas, Orlando Magic — Arenas goes down as the single most expensive player amnestied in NBA history. In the summer of 2011, the Magic literally paid Arenas $63 million to not come to practice or games for three seasons.
Arenas went on to play 17 more games in the NBA for the Memphis Grizzlies before retiring in 2012 — but kept collecting paychecks from Orlando through 2014.
Chauncey Billups, New York Knicks — Seven years after he was crowned the 2004 NBA Finals MVP, the Knicks wrote off the final season of Billups’ deal ($14.2 million). When he was waived using the provision, Billups told ESPN.com, “If I get claimed by a team I don’t want to play for, I would absolutely consider retirement.”
Billups probably should have retired. In the three years following his being amnestied, he converted only 36 percent of his total field goal attempts for the ‘contending’ Los Angeles Clippers and then the Detroit Pistons.
Brandon Roy, Portland Trailblazers — Roy was amnestied by the Blazers in 2011 to create space for the team to sign Jamal Crawford; who proceeded to have the worst season of his career in Portland. It was 2018 Timberwolves Crawford bad.
After a brief retirement following the amnesty, Roy signed with the Timberwolves for $5.1 million but only played five total games in a Minnesota uniform — and a couple more if you include preseason.
Elton Brand, Philadelphia 76ers — Other than Arenas, Brand was the most expensive single-season salary to be amnestied when the Sixers waived his $18 million to re-sign Spencer Hawes and create space to sign Nick Young.
Hawes and Young also proved to be poor investments that triggered “The Process” which — ironically — ended up bringing Brand back to mentor a team of NBA infants in 2015-16. I guess he owed them.
Metta World Peace, Los Angeles Lakers — The artist formerly known as Ron Artest joined the Lakers without a ring, Kobe Bryant gave him one and then the team paid him $14 million to go away.
World Peace, like Brand, left his amnesty team for a brief stint — in this case to go play in China — only to be brought back for two more seasons.
Carlos Boozer, Chicago Bulls — Boozer was the chosen one for the Bulls. Well, technically, I think Derrick Rose — who also didn’t work out — received Chosen One status but Boozer also got paid to not play for Thibodeau.
In Thibs’ final year in Chicago, the head coach had begun to lose control and Boozer’s dismissal — at the cost of $16.8 million — was one of the last straws of the Thibodeau Era.
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All-in-all, the 21 teams that used the amnesty between 2011 and 2014 did so to varying levels of failure. In retrospect, the provision helped the player’s side of the equation more than the owner’s. Teams like Orlando and Portland, who were desperate to shed salary, acted as most desperate entities do: irrationally.
Furthering helping the player side, not only did the amnesty clause create space for a team to sign a new player — injecting money into the total player salary coffer — it balanced what had become a strained market. Additionally, the provision allowed those amnestied players to double-dip on second contracts while still being paid their previous salary. It was the economic stimulus package of the NBA.
Due to that unbalanced reality, it seemed unlikely that the amnesty provision would ever resurface as a need. But then, the summer of 2016 happened. A fat television contract was signed; juicing every team’s pockets with $24 million in cap space and, again, the owner side acted irrationally.
The highlights — or lowlights, depending on your fanhood — were Timofey Mozgov signing a four-year, $64 million deal and Joakim Noah inking a $72 million pact but the irrationality was spread league-wide. Almost every team made a blunder that summer that they are still hindered by. For the Wolves, their 2016 blunder was signing Gorgui Dieng to a $64 million rookie contract extension.
These hindrances leave the 2018 free-agent marketplace just as constrained as it was in 2011. Despite a glut of high-level free agents potentially hitting the market — highlighted by LeBron James and Paul George — there is very little cap space to go around this summer. Maybe five or six teams will have real cap space to work with come July.
These constraints will depress a decent market of starter-caliber wing shooters and defenders. Free agent wings such as Avery Bradley, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Tyreke Evans will likely be limited to earning a salary of $8.6 million annually — the maximum amount a team without cap space can sign a player for.
Arguably, the summer of 2018 would be the most optimal time ever to have an established starting core and a chunk of cap space. A team with the pieces in place and max cap space — like the Sixers if they miss out on the even better option of LeBron — could have their pick of the litter when it comes to those Bradley/KCP/Evans types of mid-level talent while doing so by slightly outbidding that $8.6 million threshold.
Without one of Wiggins, Dieng or Teague, that team could have been the Timberwolves.
Who Would the Wolves Amnesty?
Now, this is a bit of a loaded and unfair question.
In this hypothetical, I’m only giving the Wolves an amnesty. Which is silly because it is unfair to give Minnesota a get-out-of-jail-free card without handing out 29 others. In spite of the silliness, the exercise does serve as a way to look at how this summer could have been different for the Wolves had they not pursued Wiggins, Dieng or Teague in previous summers.
In ascending order of logic, arguments for using a (fake) amnesty on a Timberwolf:
3. Andrew Wiggins: five years, $147 million
The strongest comparative argument for parting with Wiggins comes from the notion that the $25.3 million he is set to earn in 2018-19 is $10 million more than Dieng’s and $6 million more than Teague’s. Without Wiggins’ salary, Minnesota’s total of guaranteed salaries for next season would be $85 — $16 million below the projected salary cap.
Now, the Wolves wouldn’t just be able to spend that whole chunk in one place. The team would still need to fill out a complete roster and would only have seven players left (after Wiggins’ departure).
However, cutting Wiggins does give the team the most space of the three options. Without him, the team would have one bullet to fire over the $8.6 million threshold — perhaps allowing them to snag a Caldwell-Pope for above the market’s value. And it would still leave the team with the full mid-level exception still in the chamber.
In other words, the Wolves could potentially land two meaningful 3-and-D wings — one to start alongside Butler (perhaps KCP) and one to come off the bench in last season’s Crawford role (perhaps Bradley).
The argument against choosing to part with Wiggins rather than Dieng or Teague comes from his youth. He is five years Dieng’s junior and seven years Teague’s. Wiggins also, despite a pedestrian first four years in the league, does still hint at the possibility of a higher ceiling.
Teague will likely go down in history as a one-time All-Star who played on a lot of good but not great playoff teams. Wiggins can be better than that. And even his dismal trajectory hints at becoming much more than a perennial bench big, like Dieng.
There is also the financial factor of Glen Taylor’s wallet. Again, amnestied salaries still need to be paid. Writing off $147 million before the contract has even begun is beyond Arenas-level craziness. Nobody in the right mind would ever just eat that much money.
2. Gorgui Dieng: three years, $50 million
This is the contract that is most bantered around in the Wolves ether as the one that needs to be traded. The reality is that trading Dieng this summer would almost certainly require the team attaching their first-round pick (20th overall) as penance. For a team as financially pinched as the Wolves are, passing on drafting a rookie on a cost-controlled rookie deal is a tough pill to swallow.
They need to hit on that pick.
But if the team could part ways with Dieng by magically deleting that contract, now that is appealing. Through ditching his $50 million through 2021 — $15.1 million for next season — the Wolves would dip slightly below the cap for this season and give the team (some) financial flexibility for future seasons.
However, because Dieng’s salary is $10 million less than Wiggins’, removing it would not give the Wolves the “two bullets” option. For this summer, clearing Dieng would only ensure that the team could use the mid-level exception: one bullet.
And Dieng just isn’t that damaging. Sure, on the open market this summer he would likely receive half of what he is scheduled to make — probably around $6-8 million — but Dieng has at least shown a willingness to take a bench role. That is something harder to see Wiggins or Teague being willing to do. At the end of the day, rostering a bench big man with some defensive aptitude and the potential to begin shooting (open) 3s isn’t the end of the world, even if it is $8-ish million beyond his market value.
1. Jeff Teague: two years, $38 million
First and foremost, $38 million of written off money is more realistic than $147 million (Wiggins) or $50 million (Dieng). While Teague is — currently — the most productive of the trio, he is 30 years old (on June 10), likely making more than his market value and plays a heavy set of minutes that could reasonably be replaced by another player already on the roster: Tyus Jones
Jones is not Teague. Despite the staggering lineup numbers with Jones in place of Teague, I never felt those were an accurate measurement of the comparative value of the two. Dig back into the games that Teague missed — where Jones started in his place — and a trend forms of the team beginning to click at that exact time, independent of Jones’ play.
In my opinion, Teague’s production at the end of the season — when Butler was sidelined — and his high-level of play in the playoffs were a bit of a referendum on the whole Jones over Teague argument.
All that said, Jones could certainly replicate much of Teague’s production, if Teague were to magically disappear (be fake amnestied). Rose should also be considered in any Wolves point guard conversation, as the team seems very likely to retain his services this summer.
If Teague were removed from the equation, and Rose was re-signed at the minimum — a hopeful but still realistic proposition — Jones and Rose would count as a combined $4 million against the cap next season. If that duo could suffice as the lead ball-handlers, their minimal financial footprint would be a windfall for the franchise.
Additionally, at $19 million a year, clearing Teague’s salary makes the “two bullets” option almost possible. If the Wolves amnestied Teague and cleared a little more space — for example trading Justin Patton and Cole Aldrich for a future first — the team could go out and get two guys, like in the Wiggins option. Maybe in this case, rather than signing KCP and Bradley, the Wolves would sign one of the two wings and bring in Fred VanVleet with the second bullet.
Again, this is a hypothetical process but it does — in ways, given the price tags — illustrate the negative externalities of extending Wiggins and Dieng and then pursuing Teague in free agency a summer ago. The team certainly has paths to improving the roster with the three under contract but even just one do-over would put this Wolves squad on an entirely different plane.
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