The New York Knicks dropped a bombshell Friday night with a trade for Minnesota Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns.
The All-Star big man was acquired in exchange for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick via the Detroit Pistons, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania. Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill confirmed the deal is taking place.
Per ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, the Charlotte Hornets will serve as a needed third team in the trade, as both the Knicks and Timberwolves are above the first apron and not allowed to take on more money in a trade.
Towns appeared to react to the news on X minutes before it hit the public sphere. He did not appear enthusiastic.
The move will reunite Towns with his old coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached him for three seasons in Minnesota before being fired in 2019. It’s also something of a homecoming for the New Jersey native.
The trade is a shocker to more people than Towns, both for the fact the Timberwolves are moving on from a player who has served as a face of the franchise since they took him first overall in the 2015 NBA Draft and the fact the Knicks somehow aren’t done this offseason.
Why did the Knicks acquire Karl-Anthony Towns?
The Knicks were already positioned as an NBA title favorite after a transformative offseason in which they bet big on small samples and the power of friendship.
The team signed OG Anunoby to a five-year, $212.5 million deal, then traded nearly every first-round draft pick possible for Mikal Bridges. With Anunoby, it got a player with whom it went 26-6 when he was healthy. With Bridges, it got a player who perfectly fit the team’s identity, and who also played with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and DiVincenzo in college at Villanova.
That quartet of ex-Villanova players is now a trio, and the reason why is the team’s situation at center.
Last season, New York featured a big man tandem of Isaiah Hartenstein and Mitchell Robinson. Hartenstein left for a three-year, $87 million deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder, while Robinson is out until at least December with an ankle injury.
Without a move, the Knicks were on track to feature some combination of Jericho Sims, Precious Achiuwa, Randle and others at center. They went with a four-time All-Star instead.
The fit might not be perfect, but the Knicks now have a talent level to match a culture many saw as one of the best in the league. They are 100% going for it this season, with a projected starting lineup of Brunson, Hart, Bridges, Anunoby and Towns.
From a personnel perspective, the cost was significant, but not prohibitive considering Towns was already signed to a four-year, $228 million supermax extension. Randle was a three-time All-Star during his time in New York, but his fit with the team after the Bridges trade was questionable. DiVincenzo is a premium bench player, but Towns could be a premium starter.
Why did the Timberwolves trade Karl-Anthony Towns?
The Timberwolves went 56-26 last season and reached the Western Conference finals. Teams in that position don’t often trade a player like Towns.
So the team must not have been as happy with its roster composition as some speculated, namely that it was paying two star big men, Towns and Rudy Gobert, more than $90 million combined to share the paint.
Sure, Towns and Gobert are very different players. Gobert is a defensive monster who can alter nearly every shot near the basket while serving as a more limited threat on offense, with no perimeter shooting game to speak of. Towns is talented enough to run an offense through and score from everywhere on the court, but his defensive impact has always been less than you’d want from a 7-footer.
There was also the presence of Sixth Man of the Year winner Naz Reid. That’s a lot of big man minutes to manage, even if they’re all good players.
Towns’ offensive impact would have been more important, had it not been for Anthony Edwards supplanting him as Minnesota’s top option on offense. That made him expendable, and the Timberwolves opted to unload his contract in exchange for players who might fit their Edwards-Gobert tandem better.
It’s still a gamble, on both sides. Teams competing at the top of their conference rarely retool on the fly like this, and it’s even more rare to see them do it with each other.
