Free agent guard D’Angelo Russell will meet with the Minnesota Timberwolves according to Yahoo’s Chris Haynes.
Minnesota Timberwolves to meet with Brooklyn Nets restricted free agent guard D’Angelo Russell at the start of free-agency, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) June 29, 2019
Russell is coming off a career year with the Nets, averaging 21.1 points with seven assists and making his first All-Star team.
Minnesota is looking to bring in another player to go with Karl-Anthony Towns and rookie Jarrett Culver. The Timberwolves would love to pair the number one and two picks from the 2015 draft class together but it will take a few other things happening to fall into place.
First, the Brooklyn Nets would need to make the signing of Kyrie Irving official. This would allow the Nets to rescind the qualifying offer they extended to Russell.
The Wolves would also need to clear salary cap space to make signing the All-Star possible. According to Keith Smith Minnesota already has a plan in place to make that happen.
Told that D'Angelo Russell's team would not have set a meeting with the Minnesota Timberwolves without assurances Wolves could clear the necessary cap space to sign Russell. Minnesota has made it clear they believe they can get to the $27.25M max space necessary to sign Russell.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) June 29, 2019
Clearing that kind of cap space won’t be easy for the Timberwolves. It would mean a team would have to take on Andrew Wiggins enormous $100 million contract or a combination of Jeff Teague and Gorgui Dieng.
The Wolves still have competition from other teams as the Los Angeles Lakers still have a high interest in bringing Russell according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. While Towns and Russell would be a nice pairing, the Wolves aren’t exactly a title contender like the Lakers potentially are, so it will be interesting to see if that could lure Russell back to where he started his career.