The New York Knicks They dropped a bombshell Friday night with a trade for the Minnesota star Timberwolves, Karl-Anthony Towns.
The All-Star was acquired in exchange for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick via the Detroit Pistons, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic. Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports confirmed that the deal is happening.
According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, the Charlotte Hornets will serve as a necessary third team in the trade, as both the Knicks like the Timberwolves They are above the first platform and are not allowed to take more money on an exchange.
Towns seemed to react to the news in X minutes before it hit the public sphere. He didn’t seem enthusiastic.
The move will reunite Towns with his former 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 surprise to more people than Towns, both because the Timberwolves They are moving on from a player who has served as the face of the franchise since they took him first overall in the NBA Draft. NBA of 2015 as well as the fact that the Knicks somehow they are not done this offseason.
The Knicks They were already positioned as favorites for the title of the NBA after a transformative offseason in which they bet a lot 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 possible first-round draft pick for Mikal Bridges. With Anunoby, he got a player he went 26-6 with when healthy. With Bridges, they got a player who fit perfectly with the team’s identity and who also played with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and DiVincenzo in college at Villanova.
That quartet of former Villanova players is now a trio, and the reason why the team’s situation is in the center.
Last season, New York featured a big man tandem of Isaiah Hartenstein and Mitchell Robinson. Hartenstein left on 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 movement, the Knicks were on track to feature some combination of Jericho Sims, Precious Achiuwa, Randle and others in the center. Instead, they went with a four-time All-Star.
The fit may not be perfect, but the Knicks They now have a talent level to match a culture that many viewed 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 standpoint, the cost was significant, but not prohibitive considering Towns had already signed 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 They went 56-26 last season and reached the Western Conference finals. Teams at that position don’t usually trade a player like Towns.
So the team must not have been as happy with the makeup of its roster 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. With the team locked in an ownership dispute, the Timberwolves They might also want to cut payroll.
Sure, Towns and Gobert are very different players. Gobert is a defensive monster who can disrupt 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 and score from anywhere on the court, but his defensive impact has always been less than what you’d want from a 7-footer.
Also present was Sixth Man of the Year winner Naz Reid. That’s a lot of big man minutes to handle, even if they’re all good players.
Towns’ offensive impact would have been more significant had it not been for Anthony Edwards supplanting him as Minnesota’s best option on offense. That made him expendable, and the Timberwolves they opted to offload their contract in exchange for players who might fit better into their Edwards-Gobert tandem.
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 rarer to see them do it to each other.
