The Minnesota Timberwolves have already agreed to pay Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert a combined $77 million for center duties next season. They still liked Naz Reid too much to let him go.
Reid was re-signed by the Timberwolves to a three-year, $42 million contract, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and confirmed by Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic, who added that the third season is a player option.
Getting this signing done now keeps Reid from hitting free agency next Friday. It also shows how much Reid wanted to stay in Minnesota — he could have signed elsewhere as a free agent and been assured more minutes, but he chose to stay and back up Gobert and Towns.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72401045/1246603511.0.jpg)
Reid, who is in his sixth season after graduating from LSU, is a favorite of the NBA analytics crowd. Using traditional stats, he averaged 11.5 points on an outstanding 61.7 true shooting % with 4.9 rebounds per game in just over 18 minutes per night last season. On a per-36-minute basis, he averages 22.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks. Reid missed the final two games of last season and the playoffs due to a fractured wrist, but he is expected to be healthy for training camp.
There were compelling reasons to re-sign Reid, but that is $91 million committed to three centers in Minnesota for next season. It will be difficult to continue spending that much on centers and rounding out the roster, especially starting in the summer of 2024 when the full weight of the new CBA falls on big spending teams, especially with Anthony Edwards’ max extension coming this summer and kicking in for 2024-25.
The Timberwolves will have to shake things up, but Reid is safe for the time being.
Was always confident a deal would get done between the Wolves and Naz. You could tell he really wanted to be here and the Wolves wanted to keep him. A great player development story
— Jon Krawczynski (@JonKrawczynski) June 25, 2023
Leave a Reply