Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards was none too thrilled with his team after their 115-104 loss to the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night.

“Our identity right now is, I think it’s we soft as hell as a team, internally,” Edwards told reporters. “Not to the other team, but internally, we soft. We can’t talk to each other. Just a bunch of little kids. Just like we playing with a bunch of little kids. Everybody, the whole team. We just can’t talk to each other. And we’ve got to figure it out, because we can’t go down this road.”

The Timberwolves, who are fresh off only their second Western Conference Finals appearance in franchise history, are 12th in the West heading into Thanksgiving at 8-10. After boasting the NBA’s stingiest defense last season, they’re down to 12th on that end of the floor this year, and their offensive efficiency has also dipped slightly.

There’s an obvious culprit for that decline. Right before training camp began, the Timberwolves traded star center Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. Towns is now averaging 26.2 points, 12.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game in New York while shooting 54.2% from the field, while DiVincenzo is off to a glacial start this season, shooting only 34.8% overall and 31.5% from three-point range.

Why would the Timberwolves break up their core this offseason after making such a deep playoff run last year? The NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement likely deserves the blame for that.

Timberwolves’ Financial Woes

The new CBA contains punishing restrictions for teams that go well above the luxury-tax line. Teams above the first apron can’t take back more salary than they send out in trades, can’t acquire players via sign-and-trades and can’t sign players on the buyout market who were earning more than the non-taxpayer mid-level exception.

It’s even worse for teams over the new second apron, which the Timberwolves are. Not only are they subject to all of the above restrictions, but they also can’t aggregate contracts in trades or trade a first-round draft pick that’s seven years in the future. That pick also falls to the bottom of the first round if they’re above the second apron for two or more seasons over a four-year span.

Had the Timberwolves stood pat with Towns, they would be locked into second-apron hell for the foreseeable future. Towns is in the first year of the four-year, $220.4 million extension that he signed in July 2022. Gobert is in the final year of his five-year, $205 million contract. And Edwards earned himself an extra $41 million on his new five-year, $244.6 million extension by making an All-NBA team last season.

Even after the trade, the Timberwolves have the league’s second-highest payroll at nearly $206.1 million. They’re roughly $17.2 million above the second apron, and that’s after shedding more than $2 million in salary via the Towns trade.

According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, the Timberwolves were “facing heavy losses” this season “because of a whopper of a luxury-tax bill coming due” with Towns and Edwards’ new contracts kicking in. However, he noted the trade wasn’t “just about this year,” as the new few seasons were “potentially monetarily punishing” for Minnesota.

The Naz Reid Dilemma

After trading Towns, the Timberwolves knocked one thing off their 2025 offseason checklist by signing Gobert to a three-year, $109.5 million extension. He’ll go from earning more than $43.8 million this season to $35.0 million flat next year, which will provide Minnesota with some much-needed financial relief.

That’s because Naz Reid is also likely headed for a bigger payday next summer.

Reid, the NBA’s reigning Sixth Man of the Year, averaged 13.5 points and 5.2 rebounds in only 24.2 minutes per game last year while shooting a career-high 41.4% from deep on 5.0 attempts per game. He isn’t as dominant as Towns, but he’s also earning less than 30% as much as Towns this season.

Reid has a $15.0 million player option for the 2025-26 season that he figures to decline next offseason to become an unrestricted free agent. It wouldn’t have been financially viable for the Timberwolves to pay Gobert and Towns nearly $90 million combined and then splurge on retaining Reid as well. They had to make a choice at some point.

Like Reid, Randle also has a $30.9 million player option for the 2025-26 season that he could decline to become an unrestricted free agent. He’s a three-time All-Star and made two All-NBA teams over the past few seasons, although the free-agent market doesn’t project to be friendly next offseason. The Brooklyn Nets and Washington Wizards are the only two teams expected to have considerable cap space, according to Spotrac’s Keith Smith.

If Randle declines his player option after this season, the Wolves can still negotiate a new contract with him before free agency begins. They likely wanted to see how he meshed with Edwards, Gobert and the rest of their roster before committing to him long-term. Although he’s averaging 21.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game while shooting 50.4% from the floor, the team’s rocky start to the season might not be helping his case.

Even if Randle leaves in free agency, the Wolves still wouldn’t have cap space if they re-sign Reid. However, they could dip well below both aprons, which would give them more flexibility to improve their roster via trade moving forward.

The Timberwolves likely knew that by trading Towns, they’d be taking one step back now to take two steps forward later. Making a financially driven move fresh off a Western Conference Finals appearance is a tough sell to players and fans, though.

Edwards made it clear Wednesday that his frustration doesn’t just lie with Randle and DiVincenzo. He told reporters that the entire team, which had been close-knit in recent years, has “gradually grown away from each other.”

“I’m talking about the whole team,” Edwards added. “However many of us it is, all 15, we go into our own shell and we’re just growing away from each other. It’s obvious. We can see it. I can see it, the team can see it, the coaches can see it.”

These were the painful choices that the CBA was designed to force teams into. The Timberwolves won’t be the last ones to fall victim to it.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.