Timberwolves Re-Sign Both Jarred Vanderbilt and Jordan McLaughlin

Talk about a Friday news dump, am I right?

After days weeks of waiting for the Minnesota Timberwolves to make some sort of splash in free agency, news broke late Friday afternoon that the team had officially re-signed both of their restricted free agents — Jarred Vanderbilt and Jordan McLaughlin — to three-year deals:

While neither signing is all that surprising (there had been strong rumblings behind the scenes for a few weeks now that both players would inevitably return), it’s still interesting nonetheless to see the specific details of each contract, especially the dollar amounts.

As it pertains to Vando, our good friend Darren Wolfson reported that the third year of his deal is partially guaranteed, with various “triggers” that could escalate his deal ever so slightly if he reaches certain benchmarks:

Not to be outdone, Doogie also reported that the Wolves secured a team option in the third year of Jordan McLaughlin’s deal:

All in all, it looks increasingly apparent that while the Wolves may have swung and missed on a few loftier targets earlier this summer, they did indeed play the RFA game perfectly by re-signing their own guys to extremely team-friendly deals.

As it currently stands today, it would seem like Vanderbilt will now slot in alongside both Jaden McDaniels and Karl-Anthony Towns in the front court, with D’Angelo Russell Anthony Edwards filling out the two backcourt positions (or maybe Malik Beasley replaces Jaden and Ant shifts to the SF... we’ll worry about that next month). Either way, Gersson Rosas and his front office did a nice job of using the small bit of leverage they had to bring back two quality basketball players to the 2021-22 roster.

For degenerates like myself who love 1) the Minnesota Timberwolves and 2) Excel spreadsheets, Dane tweeted out the updated overview of what the team’s payroll looks like for the foreseeable future. It is still widely expected that Leandro Bolmaro will eventually sign his rookie deal as well, but I doubt we’ll get any clarification on that until we see the next domino fall in the ongoing Ben Simmons saga.

With all of that said, a warm Canis Congratulations™ goes out to both Jarred Vanderbilt and Jordan McLaughlin for cashing in on years of hard work and development. Welcome back, fellas!