{"id":601372,"date":"2026-02-13T19:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/601372\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T19:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:13:16","slug":"how-would-an-expansion-draft-affect-the-timberwolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/601372\/","title":{"rendered":"How Would An Expansion Draft Affect The Timberwolves?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBA All-Star break is mercifully here, with all the tweaks<\/a> to this year\u2019s format.<\/p>\n

The USA vs. the World (vs. the other USA team) round robin tournament. The return of the shooting stars competition. Jaxson Hayes<\/a> being by far the best player in the dunk contest. And Adam Silver letting 200 grifters<\/a>, I mean creators, go off-leash inside the Intuit Dome to farm that sweet, sweet content means I will be treating the whole weekend like the Kid Rock halftime show and not acknowledging its existence.<\/p>\n

Instead of giving in and finally learning what a Jesser is, or watching Mr. Beast launch his presidential campaign \u2014 but only if a fan can dunk over mecha Steve Ballmer \u2014 I\u2019ll be immersing myself in the news that NBA expansion could be on the horizon (for real this time<\/a>).<\/p>\n

A report<\/a> from the Dallas Morning News stated that the NBA Board of Governors could vote to expand the league this summer. The two cities should come as no surprise. Seattle and Las Vegas have been thrown around<\/a> as expansion teams for the last decade. It will be exciting to have the Sonics back in our lives, and we\u2019ll have to deal with LeBron and Tom Brady both being owners<\/a> in Sin City.<\/p>\n

One of the first steps for these two new franchises would be to fill the rosters. If the NBA adds two new teams, they\u2019ll hold an expansion draft. The premise is fairly simple. Each existing NBA team can protect up to eight of its players. You can\u2019t protect a player whose contract is expiring. And only one player per team can be selected in an expansion draft.<\/p>\n

Spotrac made a nifty little program<\/a> to simulate an upcoming expansion draft and recommend who each team would protect, saving me a ton of time and stress about the salary cap.<\/p>\n

Their recommendations for the Minnesota Timberwolves caught my eye. They had the Wolves protecting their obvious young stars: Anthony Edwards<\/a>, Naz Reid<\/a>, and Jaden McDaniels<\/a>. Julius Randle<\/a> and Donte DiVincenzo<\/a> would be protected if the draft were held this summer. Spotrac also has Tim Connelly and the Timberwolves protecting their young assets: Joan Beringer<\/a>, Terrence Shannon Jr.<\/a>, and Jaylen Clark<\/a>. Newly acquired<\/a> Ayo Dosunmu<\/a> wouldn\u2019t be able to be protected because he\u2019s a free agent this summer. But that\u2019s not the surprising player left open for either Seattle or Las Vegas to anchor their defense.<\/p>\n

According to Spotrac, Rudy Gobert<\/a>, the Stifle Tower, who is in the running<\/a> for a record-breaking fifth Defensive Player of the Year trophy this season, would be one of the highest-profile players left unprotected in a draft, along with former No. 1 pick Zion Williamson<\/a>, Ja Morant<\/a>, Jimmy Butler<\/a>, and Paul George<\/a>. If the expansion draft were just about protecting your eight best players, Gobert is a lock to be protected. But there are many variables to consider when deciding who to leave vulnerable to selection.<\/p>\n

Gobert will be 34 years old by the time the 2026-27 season tips off in October. He\u2019s having a resurgent year<\/a> in his 13th season in the NBA, but there\u2019s no denying Gobert has put some miles on his 7\u20191\u201d French body. He was a shell of himself in the playoffs last year, especially in the Western Conference Finals. He was a non-factor against the Oklahoma City Thunder, averaging 5.8 points and 6.6 rebounds during the five-game ass-kicking. Gobert also played very little for France at the 2024 Olympics, and history shows<\/a> a steep fall off for 30-something centers.<\/p>\n

Along with his age concerns, Gobert is set to make $36.5 million<\/a> next season and has a player option for $38 million that he will assuredly pick up in his age-35 season in 2027-28. That\u2019s a hefty sum of money to be paying for an aging center that relies on athleticism. I sound like Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a> or Draymond Green<\/a> criticising<\/a> Gobert like this and counting his money in public. But these are certainly conversations Tim Connelly and Co. are having behind closed doors with expansion coming imminently.<\/p>\n

If the Timberwolves were prioritizing their top eight players, they\u2019d likely protect Edwards, McDaniels, Randle, Reid, Gobert, DiVincenzo, Beringer, and then either TSJ or Clark as the eighth player.<\/p>\n

Things would get even more interesting if there were a zero percent chance the expansion draft would be held this offseason. At the earliest, it would be held in the summer of 2027. That would mean the Timberwolves couldn\u2019t protect Gobert or Randle unless they pick up their player options for the 2027-28 season, leaving DiVincenzo as a free agent in the summer of 2027. Assuming the Wolves use Dosunmu\u2019s Bird Rights<\/a> to re-sign him this offseason, Minnesota\u2019s long-term roster planning will revolve around Edwards, McDaniels, Reid, Dosunmu, and Beringer.<\/p>\n

NBA expansion is coming soon. When it does, the Wolves will have decisions to make that could affect the championship window around Anthony Edwards. There\u2019s no guarantee that an expansion team would take anyone left unprotected by the Timberwolves. Still, there\u2019s a good chance one of the expansion teams would leave a draft with a cornerstone of this era of Wolves basketball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA All-Star break is mercifully here, with all the tweaks to this year\u2019s format. The USA vs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,307,152,3954,6,16914,373,308],"class_list":{"0":"post-601372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","11":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-expansion","14":"tag-rudy-gobert","15":"tag-timberwolves"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}