The Julius Randle situation is super confusing. For starters, Chris Finch apparently loves him and the odds of Randle being traded seem pretty low. Making matters more complicated is the Timberwolves’ status as a second-apron team, which restricts them from combining players in a trade and taking more money back than they send out.
If Minnesota trades Randle, they cannot take back more salary than Randle’s 2024-25 cap hit of $33,073,920. That’s why the trade idea thrown out on The Kevin O’Connor Show this week simply won’t work. Their idea featured Minnesota sending Randle and Detroit’s 2025 first-round pick to the Raptors for Bruce Brown and Chris Boucher.
On paper, it’s a cool idea. Brown has a connection to Timberwolves boss Tim Connelly and Boucher would be an ideal backup power forward/center to come off the bench behind Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid. But it doesn’t work. You see, Brown and Boucher’s salaries total $736,000 more than Randle makes, which means the deal is dead. ESPN’s trade machine will deem the idea a success, but it’s wrong (Fanspo’s trade machine is superior).
If the Timberwolves are looking to trade Randle — and it doesn’t sound like they are — then they should be targeting teams that might be “tanking” for a shot at the No. 1 pick to draft Duke phenom Cooper Flagg. Right now, there are five teams with 10 or fewer wins in an apparent race for the best odds to land the No. 1 pick…