The Karl-Anthony Towns trade between the New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves is a rarity even in NBA terms. This league is certainly no stranger to surprising blockbuster trades, but surprising blockbuster trades the weekend before training camp begins involving two championship contenders hamstrung by a new collective bargaining agreement designed in part to kill deals like this? Yeah, that’s a new one.
Both the Knicks and Timberwolves entered Friday with 2024-25 championship ambitions. They are both leaving Friday with 2024-25 championship ambitions. Yet they’ve swapped reigning All-Stars and drastically remade their rosters mere days before training camps are set to begin. The closest analogue to this deal historically would probably be the Kyrie Irving-Isaiah Thomas swap of 2017, but even that deal came in August. Nobody has time to be shocked. The season unofficially begins on Monday.
So what are we to make of this thing? What motivated two potential Finals teams to shake up their rosters so drastically? And how did both teams do in the deal? Here are our grades for Friday’s shocker.
New York Knicks: B+
The Knicks had two major problems to solve within the next year. The short-term issue was the center position. Isaiah Hartenstein left in free agency. Mitchell Robinson is injured. Tom Thibodeau teams are incredibly reliant on size. New York was, at some point, going to need to take a swing on a center. The longer-term issue was Julius Randle’s contract. He is a three-time All-Star that makes more sense as a floor-raiser than a ceiling-raiser. He needs the ball in his hands to succeed. His jump shot is inconsistent. So is his defense. He’s never quite figured out the pick-and-roll dance with Jalen Brunson, though in fairness, the Knicks largely didn’t ask him too. He was, in a sense, a relic of a team they no longer had. He helped build the culture that Brunson inherited. But there was a pretty strong argument against his fit on a Brunson-centric team. He just wasn’t going to have the ball in his hands enough to justify the sort of contract his accolades suggested he would get.
The Knicks solved both of those problems in one fell swoop. Towns can play either power forward or center, a rarity among modern bigs and a very valuable one for a Knicks team that is also pretty heavily invested in Robinson. The Knicks have their short-term answer, and to get it, they ducked their long-term Randle problem. The Towns fit is much, much cleaner.
He’s not just a good shooter. He is, by almost any statistical measure, the greatest shooter ever to play the center position. Having that caliber of shooting out of a big man changes everything. The Knicks don’t have to worry about defenders ignoring Josh Hart nearly as much anymore. Do so at your own peril: giving him unfettered access to the glass with this spacing would be downright irresponsible. The difference between New York and Minnesota, though, is that the Knicks are far-better suited to taking advantage of the rest of his gifts than the Timberwolves. Towns is a stellar pick-and-roll finisher. He’s never really been able to show it because the Timberwolves didn’t have worthwhile guards early in his career, and by the time Anthony Edwards became a star, Towns was playing in poorly-spaced lineups next to Rudy Gobert. Jalen Brunson is going to love him.
Does Towns create defensive issues? Yes, but they’re workable when you have the right personnel. The Knicks emphatically have the right personnel. If they determine he needs to play next to a traditional rim-protector, they have Robinson. Truthfully, though, he likely starts as New York’s only big man. He’s very good in space, taking advantage of his athleticism to clog up passing lanes and stifle ball-handlers in more aggressive pick-and-roll defenses. Thibodeau tends to demand quite a bit out of his rim-protectors, but just think of the perimeter defenders on this roster. How often could anybody get past OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart and Deuce McBride? Anunoby can even defend centers when matchups dictate it. Towns couldn’t be joining a more perfect roster for his specific skill set.
Losing DiVincenzo stings. McBride can’t be a feast-or-famine reserve anymore. He’s the sixth man now, a role he more than earned a season ago. You’ll hear complaints about his contract. He’s certainly overpaid. A four-year super max would make most teams queasy, and as we’ll soon cover, it’s why Minnesota needed to trade him in the first place. But this is the flexibility Jalen Brunson’s discount buys you. The Knicks can afford this deal because Brunson, and eventually Mikal Bridges, will subsidize it. That’s a luxury no other team had.
The money is going to be tight for the Knicks. They lost meaningful depth and are now mostly out of tradable first-round capital. The big moves are done now. Either some version of this team is capable of winning it all or the Knicks aren’t going to do it. But the sheer magnitude of the talent upgrade here given the picks the Knicks already owed Brooklyn makes this a win. That win comes with risks attached, but they were risks the Knicks had to take given the potential reward.
Minnesota Timberwolves: B+
Nobody wanted to admit this, but Minnesota had to trade Karl-Anthony Towns. There’s an argument in favor of waiting a year. The Timberwolves just came seven wins shy of a championship. Typically that’s a team that runs it back. But Minnesota saw what happened when New Orleans tried to trade Brandon Ingram this summer.
Trading a player who expects max money but doesn’t consistently produce at a max level has become increasingly challenging. Karl-Anthony Towns, who is locked into a max contract for the next four years, posed a dilemma for the Timberwolves. The new CBA restrictions made it difficult for Minnesota to delay a trade until next summer, potentially risking losing the opportunity altogether. Thus, the Timberwolves decided to make a move now rather than wait.
In contrast to big-market teams like New York, Minnesota had to consider salary constraints. Players like Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert, and Jaden McDaniels were already earning market-rate salaries, and Naz Reid was likely to decline his player option for a raise. With Gobert’s importance to the team’s defense and Edwards as the primary offensive threat, Towns became the logical choice to trade, especially given his inconsistent performance in critical playoff games.
The acquisition of Julius Randle offered a more cost-effective alternative for the Timberwolves. While there may be a slight dip in talent compared to Towns, the financial savings and Randle’s playmaking abilities make him a valuable addition. Additionally, the flexibility provided by Randle’s player option allows the Timberwolves to reassess and pivot if needed in the future.
Ultimately, the trade was made with the long-term success of the team in mind. Sacrificing Towns to build a contender around rising star Edwards was seen as a strategic move. With a young core in place and the potential for further roster adjustments, the Timberwolves aimed to extend their competitiveness and adaptability in a challenging Western Conference landscape. text in a more concise manner:
Please rewrite the text to make it more concise.