NBA News: Josh Green Swapped for Cody Williams

On another inauspicious evening in the NBA offseason, Minnesota Timberwolves President of Basketball Operations, Tim Connelly, was wide awake. As first reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania, Minnesota traded Josh Green and cash to the Utah Jazz for Cody Williams and John Konchar.

Charania followed up by sharing that Konchar, a 30-year-old wing rebounding specialist, will see his $6.2 million contract waived-and-stretched, incurring roughly $2 million in dead cap space for the next three years. Konchar could’ve been an interesting end-of-bench option, but alas the Wolves are filled to the brim at his position.

Josh Green, who was just on a team-wide outing in France, was the unfortunate salary dump that needed to happen in order to make the Jonathan Kuminga deal legal per salary cap regulations. Despite being a potential Donte DiVincenzo replacement on the roster, Green’s $14.7 million was the only realistic salary that could be moved to make enough room for Kuminga to join via the tax-payer mid-level exception. Many had theorized if there were no takers for Green, Minnesota could have entertained a waive-and-stretch of his contract, incurring a near $5 million cap hit for three years.

Instead they nearly halved that while taking a flyer on a 21-year-old top 10 draft pick, Cody Williams.

Cody is the little brother of the Oklahoma City Thunder All-NBA wing, Jalen Williams. The younger Williams has spent his last two seasons on a tanking Utah organization who have mostly failed to develop any young talent despite multiple lottery picks.

Cody is included in that bunch.

He was billed as a long (seven-foot wingspan), athletic, triple-threat scorer out of college who knocked down over 40% of his triples in his one year at Colorado. Williams, like his brother, was a late riser during the 2024 draft process, impressing scouts with his defensive tenacity and two-way star potential. Instead of following in Jalen’s footsteps on his journey to stardom, he has fallen flat on his face, becoming one of the worst players in the NBA. Respectfully.

But all is not lost yet! Tim Connelly and his front office have always been believers in finding value in what others perceive as broken toys. Aaron Gordon, Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle, Bones Hyland, LaMelo Ball, Jonathan Kuminga. These are all players that had less than stellar “reputations” among various NBA circles, yet he’s taken a leap of faith to salvage their careers. And they’ve mostly worked out.

Williams is much less of a risk than those aforementioned names, considering he’s likely not even going to figure to be in the rotation. Hell, he’s not even guaranteed to make the opening night roster. He’s on his final two years of his rookie scale contract (~$6.5 million per year). However, Cody did finally show some promise near the end of his sophomore season.

According to our SB Nation sister blog, SLC Dunk, they named Cody their second most improved player of the season. They also included this nugget from Zach Lowe:

I think Cody Williams — who looked like an epic bust of a top-10 pick… has shown enough in the last couple of months that I think there’s a world in which he’s a functional eighth to tenth guy on a good Utah Jazz team. His defense is really improved. He’s a solid defender. He knows how to close out on guys short, he knows how to run guys off the arc, he’s extremely well balanced.

The Wolves now have 14 players under contract, and all three two-way spots filled. That leaves one potential spot to be filled, though many teams often leave a spot open for flexibility. If we know anything about Connelly though, things can change on a dime, but this could be what Minnesota’s roster will look like come opening night.

Discuss.