MINNEAPOLIS — The Timberwolves are adding free-agent forward Kyle Anderson, who played the past four seasons for Memphis, an NBA source confirmed.
The deal is for two years and $18 million.
Free agency officially opens at 11 p.m. Thursday.
The 6-9 Anderson is an eight-year veteran. He played his first four seasons for the San Antonio Spurs after they drafted him in the first round (30th overall) in 2014 out of UCLA.
Anderson, 28, averaged 7.6 points and 5.3 rebounds per game last season as the Grizzlies claimed the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference and beat the Wolves in the first round of the NBA playoffs.
His best season was 2020-21, when he averaged 12.4 points and 5.7 rebounds and played 27.3 minutes per game.
Among the flurry of contract agreements that hit Twitter from national NBA reporters Thursday were maximum and supermax extensions for players such as Washington's Bradley Beal, Denver's Nikola Jokic and Phoenix's Devin Booker.
It is expected that Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns will join that group and sign a supermax extension that will tack on four years and $214 million, the same contract Booker reportedly agreed to Thursday.
Despite frequent rumors over the years that he was unhappy and would want out of Minnesota, Towns has been steadfast in his public comments that he was committed to building a winner with the Wolves. The kind of money the Wolves are able to offer — which is significantly more than other teams would be able to offer him — certainly doesn't hurt.
The NBA's salary cap rules incentivize players to stay with the teams that drafted them, and because of that, league rules allow the Wolves to offer more money than any other team could eventually. The Wolves can offer Towns 35% of the salary cap.
That kind of money may make some blanch, but this is what Towns qualified for by making the All-NBA team this season, and few players who make All-NBA teams aren't on maximum or supermax contracts.
The amount of money in Towns' contract is also a product of the ballooning fortunes of the league and the expanding salary cap thanks to its billion-dollar television deals. This is what it costs to keep players of Towns' stature, and if the Wolves didn't offer it, they would risk upsetting Towns and losing him.
There's little risk in this for Towns, who, if he is unhappy down the road, can always request a trade and get out of Minnesota. To underscore how much of a players' league it truly is, Kevin Durant requested a trade Thursday from the Brooklyn Nets with four years remaining on his current contract.
As for the current team, the Wolves still were looking at options for their frontcourt and had the full use of the mid-level exception (about $10.5 million per season) at their disposal to do so. Some potential targets, like Mo Bamba, Isaiah Hartenstein and JaVale McGee, signed elsewhere. Bamba re-upped with Orlando, Hartenstein signed with the Knicks and McGee with Dallas.
