Kuminga’s Cheap Deal Forces Minnesota to Move Green

Jonathan Kuminga agreed to a two-year, $12.4 million contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves, agent Aaron Turner told ESPN on Wednesday. The 23-year-old forward is expected to start at power forward next to Anthony Edwards, LaMelo Ball, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert.

Minnesota has to move money to make it legal. The Wolves plan to trade Josh Green or waive him and stretch his pay before Saturday so the signing stays under the second apron.

He Turned Down More Money in Los Angeles

Turner told ESPN the pact is worth $12.4 million over two years, with a player option on 2027-28. Shams Charania first posted that Kuminga had agreed to a two-year deal at $13 million, and The Athletic, whose sources said the contract is not signed, put the figure at $12 million.

The Los Angeles Lakers were the other serious bidder. League sources told Charania that L.A. offered a similar starting job and $12 million-plus a year over three years in a sign-and-trade with Atlanta, a path that would have kept Kuminga’s Bird rights and paid him more up front.

Chicago and Portland also made offers, per ESPN. Kuminga picked the shorter Minnesota deal so he can walk next summer if the role hits. USA Today noted he has started only 24 games across the last two seasons, so the starting job was the point of the bet.

Rob Pelinka talked several times with Hawks general manager Onsi Saleh about that sign-and-trade, ESPN reported, but the Lakers, Hawks and Kuminga never landed on terms all three could live with. If next summer’s market is only another mid-level, three years at $12 million-plus in Los Angeles would have paid him more than a $6 million prove-it year plus a later raise. He took the exit hatch anyway.

$3.9 Million Between Kuminga and the Second Apron

Minnesota is not paying this out of cap space. The Wolves are using the taxpayer mid-level exception, which the NBA set at $6.064 million for 2026-27 when it posted a second apron of $221.686 million. The salary cap is $164.961 million. The tax line is $200.428 million. The first apron is $209.015 million.

Using that mid-level hard-caps a team at the second apron. Minnesota was already stuck there after sending Julius Randle and Naz Reid out in June, because those outgoing salaries were aggregated, cap analyst Keith Smith wrote at the time. Brett Siegel of ClutchPoints put the Wolves about $3.9 million under the line on Wednesday and said a $6.1 million Kuminga addition would push them about $2.2 million over it.

Basketball-Reference lists Minnesota’s current player salaries at $215,871,829 before Kuminga. Spotrac, cited by Last Word on Sports, had the books at $217.62 million, or $4.06 million under the apron. Either way the math does not fit a 14-man roster without a cut. Bobby Marks of ESPN said the Wolves also still need a minimum deal to reach 14 players, so they have to clear more than Kuminga’s first-year number.

Edwards, Ball, Gobert, McDaniels and Ayo Dosunmu already eat most of the sheet. Edwards is in at $48,924,624. Ball is at $40,770,520. Gobert is at $36,500,000. McDaniels is at $26,200,001. Dosunmu’s new deal starts at $19,310,345. There is no quiet way to sneak a starter onto that list.

Josh Green’s $14.7 Million Salary Has Until Saturday

Green is the cleanest chip. Basketball-Reference carries a $14,679,012 salary this season for the 25-year-old wing, the last year of the three-year, $41 million extension he signed in Dallas. Minnesota got him on June 25 as salary in the LaMelo Ball trade and has had him for a matter of weeks.

Charania’s sources said the Wolves will shop Green first and, if no team takes him, waive him and stretch the money before Saturday. Marks flagged that same date as the last day to use the stretch on 2026-27 salary. One fan already objected that Green just traveled with the club in Europe; the basketball cost of this signing is a wing Minnesota just added for depth.

THE WAYS MINNESOTA CAN CREATE ROOM

• Trade Green: Swap him for a cheaper player and drop enough salary to fit Kuminga and a 14th man under the apron.
• Waive and stretch: Use the CBA rule that lets a team stretch a waived player’s remaining salary over twice the years left plus one, which for Green’s expiring deal would spread the hit over three seasons.
• Move DiVincenzo: Siegel also named Donte DiVincenzo, who is owed $12,535,000 and is out after a torn Achilles, though The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski has reported Minnesota is not trading him.

A stretch would cut this year’s Green charge by about two-thirds and buy the Kuminga number with room to spare. It would also leave dead money on the books through 2028-29, which is a long bill for a player who averaged 4.3 points in 15.7 minutes for Charlotte last season. A trade is cleaner if anyone wants a 38.7 percent career three-point shooter on an expiring $14.7 million salary.

Why Edwards and the New Owners Landed Him

Minnesota recruited him for a month with the only money it had left, the taxpayer mid-level, tied to a starting job. Tim Connelly, the president of basketball operations, flew to Miami for a four-hour meeting with Kuminga, league sources told ESPN. Coach Chris Finch sold the fit. Edwards called more than once and pushed him to pick the Wolves over the Lakers, The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski and Sam Amick reported.

The other change sat in the owner’s box. On Aug. 21, five days before Kuminga chose Minnesota, Marc Stad agreed to buy Marc Lore’s controlling stake at a $4.5 billion valuation, with Alex Rodriguez staying on and raising his share. The Athletic wrote that the new group first had only a veteran minimum to offer and then told Connelly it would raise the bid if that was what it took.

Stad, Rodriguez and Lore said in a joint statement that their “priority is and always will be championships.” This is that line in practice: they spent extra cash and extra cap pain to put a 6-foot-7, 225-pound forward next to Gobert on a roster that had just traded its two main power forwards.

He is a starting caliber 4 and brings a physical presence the Wolves did not have prior to his arrival. All for $6M.

Jon Krawczynski, The Athletic, on X

The fit questions Krawczynski listed are the ones that follow the money. Can Kuminga space the floor enough? Are there enough shots for Ball, Edwards, McDaniels and a downhill four? Minnesota is betting that athleticism next to Gobert is worth the crowding, and that Edwards’ recruiting call was a better closer than Los Angeles’s larger check.

Atlanta Left a $24.3 Million Option on the Table

This is the second straight summer Kuminga’s contract leaked into fall. Golden State drafted him No. 7 in 2021 as the young piece of a two-timeline plan around Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. After a title and long stretches out of Steve Kerr’s rotation, the Warriors re-signed him last fall on a two-year, $46.8 million deal with a team option, ESPN reported, a figure The Athletic described as nearly $50 million.

Five months later they traded him and Buddy Hield to Atlanta for Kristaps Porzingis. Kuminga played 16 regular-season games for the Hawks and averaged 12.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 22.1 minutes. He scored 27 in his Feb. 24 debut against Washington, then reached 20 only twice more in the regular season.

In the first round he averaged 13.7 points in 26 bench minutes as Atlanta took a 2-1 lead on the New York Knicks, who won the series and the title. He scored 21 in that Game 3. The Hawks declined his $24.3 million team option on June 29, opening the full $15.044 million non-taxpayer mid-level for themselves and sending him out as an unrestricted free agent.

1. October 2025: Re-signs with Golden State on a two-year, $46.8 million deal that includes a team option.
2. February 2026: Traded to Atlanta with Buddy Hield for Kristaps Porzingis; scores 27 in his Hawks debut.
3. April 2026: Averages 13.7 points in the first-round loss to the Knicks, with a 21-point game in a 2-1 series lead.
4. June 29, 2026: Hawks decline the $24.3 million option and make him an unrestricted free agent.
5. August 26, 2026: Agrees to Minnesota’s two-year, $12.4 million prove-it deal with a player option.

ESPN lists 334 regular-season games and 40 playoff games on his ledger. The best of them against Minnesota: 20.3 points on 54.3 percent shooting in Golden State’s five-game second-round loss to the Timberwolves in 2025. The Athletic had that series at 20.8 points. He is now taking that tape to the team that beat him, on about a quarter of the salary Atlanta just refused to pay.

The Frontcourt Hole Minnesota Opened in June

Randle went to Brooklyn in a three-team deal that also involved Chicago. A day later, on June 25, Charlotte sent Ball and Green to Minnesota for Reid, a 2033 unprotected first-round pick, first-round swaps in 2028, 2029 and 2030, and second-rounders in 2029, 2032 and 2033. Reid, the 2024 Sixth Man of the Year, had averaged 13.6 points and 6.2 rebounds. Randle had averaged 21.1. The Wolves swapped two frontcourt scorers for a 25-year-old point guard who put up 20.1 points, 7.1 assists and 4.8 rebounds in 72 games last season.

That left a starting four next to Gobert and a thin bench if Green is the player who pays for Kuminga. Trey Lyles is already on a $2,449,421 minimum. DiVincenzo will miss the year. The young core Kuminga joins is his age: Edwards, Ball and McDaniels are all 25. Gobert is 34 and still making $36.5 million.

The contract is not signed until Green’s money moves. Saturday is the stretch deadline. If Minnesota cannot find a trade, it will eat years of dead salary to start a 23-year-old who just walked away from a larger Lakers offer, and it will do that because a five-day-old ownership group told Connelly to go get him.