Does this trade make sense for the Minnesota Timberwolves?
While Taurean Prince and Cedi Osman could definitely contribute for the Timberwolves next season, I am really unsure if this trade makes as much sense for the T-Wolves as it does the Cavaliers. Minnesota is in an awkward position as a franchise because they have been struggling for years now, but they are going to be $20M+ over the salary cap for next season.
Making this move does not really free up much cap space for them, since the contracts they would be taking on and sending out are about $20M each and do Prince and Osman really make that big of a difference for this organization?
Jaden McDaniels will likely get more playing time at the power-forward position moving forward and they have Malik Beasley, Anthony Edwards and Josh Okogie on the wing, so is there really room to experiment with another guy like Cedi Osman, who is not a franchise-altering player?
Quite honestly, this seems like a lateral move for the Timberwolves as they do not gain anything other than a future second-round pick from this deal. Maybe this pick will end up being valuable if they can get a guy with first-round grades that fell to the second-round, but overall, this trade does not make much sense for them.
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The Timberwolves need to continue building their young talents instead of trading them away and while Rubio is definitely going to be on the trade block, they can probably get better value for him somewhere else and better yet, free up cap space at the same time.
Minnesota needs to start winning games, but Taurean Prince and Cedi Osman are not going to drastically change this franchise for the better compared to Jarrett Culver and Ricky Rubio. In fact, Rubio and Culver combine for a higher Win Shares Rate than Prince and Osman combined, so this trade does not really positively help the Timberwolves in any way other than giving them depth and some role players.