When Karl-Anthony Towns put his post on “X” at 9:08 p.m. Friday, it was clear that something was up. It was just ellipses and nothing more, a cryptic bat signal of sorts to grab everyone’s attention.
Little did most know that those three dots would signify the end of his run in Minnesota, just days before he was set to begin his 10th training camp with the Timberwolves.
…
— Karl-Anthony Towns (@KarlTowns) September 28, 2024
Shortly before the tweet was published, Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly had arrived at Towns’ home in the Minneapolis suburbs to inform the four-time All-Star that he was being traded to the New York Knicks in a whopper of a deal that brought Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round draft pick from the Detroit Pistons to Minnesota, team and league sources told The Athletic.
In some ways, the deal wasn’t a surprise. The Knicks have coveted Towns ever since Leon Rose, his former CAA agent, was hired to run New York’s front office in 2020. Everyone knew that the Timberwolves would eventually have to make some major moves to address a bloated cap sheet, and Towns’ name was the one more often mentioned in trade rumors over the last year. After the Wolves were eliminated by Dallas in the conference finals in May, Towns was asked about his desire to return to Minnesota for a 10th season.
“I don’t know. I’m confident I’ll be able to be here with my brothers and continue what I love to do here at home,” he said then. “So that’s the plan, nothing’s changed on my side. I love this city. I love this organization. I love this city. It’s given me my life, me and my family.”
The timing of the agreement, just three days before the Timberwolves open perhaps their most anticipated training camp in franchise history, was an absolute thunderbolt that no one saw coming. The Towns family was “stunned” a league source told The Athletic.
All summer long, they have touted continuity and chemistry after a Western Conference finals appearance last season. The experience they gained with only the second playoff series win in the team’s 35 seasons in the league was supposed to serve as a jumping-off point for the team to return largely intact and take it one step further.
Instead, Connelly pulled off his second audacious trade in three seasons on the job, following his acquisition of Rudy Gobert in 2022. Towns made his fourth All-Star team in 2023-24 and played a pivotal role in Minnesota’s second-round victory over defending champion Denver with his defense on Nikola Jokić and timely shooting.
Towns has been the one constant here since he was chosen No. 1 overall in 2015, surviving the depths of losing early in his career, the revolving doors of leadership positions (seven general managers and five head coaches in his first eight seasons) and an endless reshuffling of the roster to finally be on a team that looked like a consistent winner. The Wolves have made the playoffs for three consecutive seasons and were ready to mount a charge toward the NBA Finals this season.
Towns arrived in the Twin Cities this week to begin preparations for training camp and everyone was all smiles. He went to a Minnesota Lynx WNBA playoff game on Wednesday, got in some workouts with teammates at the practice facility and the team posted videos on social media hyping his upcoming 10th season in the league.
szn 10 🔜 pic.twitter.com/Kw2vmWQmcv
— Minnesota Timberwolves (@Timberwolves) September 25, 2024
None of the messaging indicated a seismic move was imminent. After more than a year of the Knicks making overtures for Towns that were summarily dismissed by the Timberwolves because they were not good enough, many in Minnesota didn’t expect Rose and Gersson Rosas, the former president of basketball operations in Minnesota, who was fired and landed with the Knicks, to get serious about their pursuit.
That is exactly what happened Friday as the Knicks added DiVincenzo to the package with Randle and the Pistons pick, which is top-13 protected next year, top-11 protected in 2026 and top-nine protected in 2027. When the Wolves looked at the deal in aggregate, they saw it as an opportunity to add some flexibility and build around burgeoning star Anthony Edwards for not just this season but the foreseeable future.
The Wolves made a hard run at DiVincenzo in free agency last season, believing his combination of shooting and wing defense would be a perfect fit on their roster. Adding him to a team full of great defenders, including Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker figures to only strengthen their top-rated defense.
If they were going to relent to New York’s wishes by finally giving them Towns, DiVincenzo had to be part of the package, team sources said. They see him fitting in right alongside Edwards in the backcourt and his 3-point shooting will be crucial for a team that just gave up its best outside shooter. DiVincenzo can play point guard when Mike Conley needs a breather and can come off the bench to provide firepower and rugged defense as well.
Edwards willingly and happily shared the spotlight in his first four seasons with Towns, a stark contrast to the volatile year-plus that Jimmy Butler spent in Minnesota berating KAT to no end. But this trade drove home the point that was becoming more and more clear last season: the Timberwolves are Edwards’ team.
He will have trusty veterans like Gobert, Conley and Joe Ingles there to help guide him, but also a bevy of young talent to grow with him: 24-year-old McDaniels, 25-year-old Naz Reid, 26-year-old Alexander-Walker and 19-year-old Rob Dillingham, with Leonard Miller (20), Josh Minott (21) and Terrence Shannon Jr. (24) marinating on the bench. Should a couple of them pan out, Edwards will have a dynamic roster for seasons to come.
As the Timberwolves analyzed their cap situation and looked at the landscape across the league, it was getting harder and harder for the Wolves to see a scenario where they could keep this team intact beyond this season, team sources said. Edwards is beginning a five-year max contract this season, Gobert has two years remaining on his max and Towns was starting a four-year, $220 million max extension this season. Add to it big raises for McDaniels this season and Reid last season, and the Wolves had entered the dreaded second apron that brings with it luxury tax penalties and obstacles for team-building meant to strongly discourage teams from crossing that threshold for more than a couple of seasons.
One of the only paths forward for keeping everyone together, team sources said, was to win the championship and cash in on the enormous playoff revenue that comes with it. The Wolves will enter the season hoping to make it that far, but playing in a deep Western Conference makes it a treacherous path.
Towns will turn 29 in November and has missed at least 22 games in four of his last five seasons. He is set to make $49 million this season and has a $61 million player option in 2027-28. That salary made the market for him quite tepid, team sources said. If KAT were to get injured again or the Timberwolves took a step back competitively, it might have been difficult to move him.
Keeping him on the roster likely would have meant saying goodbye to Reid, who won NBA Sixth Man of the Year last season and is wildly popular in Minnesota, and likely Alexander-Walker as well, team sources said.
Randle ($29 million) and DiVincenzo ($11.5 million) make less combined than Towns does this season. DiVincenzo scored 15.5 points per game and shot 40 percent from 3 for the Knicks last season and has a bargain contract that will pay him $11.9 million in 2025-26 and $12.5 million in 2026-27. Randle can become a free agent after this season, making him eligible for a contract extension.
The two-for-one opens up more options for tweaking the roster going forward. Randle and DiVincenzo have much more tradeable contracts, and the shorter terms could give the Wolves a lot of leeway three years down the road. With Edwards rising near the top of the league, the Wolves like that part of the deal while also believing they can remain contenders for the season ahead.
They believe they now have one of the best eight-man rotations in the West. If Dillingham develops quickly, it gets more intriguing.
There is some definite risk in making the move. Towns is the best player in the trade, though some on the Wolves believe Randle is underrated at this point after missing 36 games last season and having some struggles in the playoffs. The Wolves do not beat the Nuggets in the second round of the playoffs without Towns, who defended MVP Jokić as well as any player on the team. He also was a formidable scoring threat in their first-round win over Phoenix but struggled from behind the arc in the conference finals against Dallas.
Towns was the best shooter on the team and helped space the floor for Edwards in lineups where Towns and Gobert shared the floor. DiVincenzo, Conley, Edwards and Reid will all have to increase their volume to help make up for Towns’ departure.
Towns also was a pillar in the Twin Cities community, never getting into trouble with the law and never requesting a trade, even in the most tumultuous times for the organization. He spearheaded a drive that got thousands of winter coats to young people in need and hosted disadvantaged kids for movie screenings and Christmas giveaways. He performed random acts of kindness, including buying a car for a fan who posted a GoFundMe on Twitter when theirs was stolen. And in an era when players ask for trades at the drop of a hat, Towns never once wanted to be dealt away.
Also, last season’s team had an undeniable chemistry as it marched to the conference finals. They all got along, laughing and smiling through the long NBA season.
Making this move now is a big vote of confidence that Reid is capable of handling a larger minutes load and role on offense. How the Wolves split time between Reid and Randle, who is coming off of a shoulder injury but did average 24.0 points, 9.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists in 46 games last season, will be an interesting puzzle for coach Chris Finch to solve. Finch was an assistant in New Orleans during Randle’s lone season there and is said to be a fan of his game.
Randle has plenty of advocates in Minnesota. The Wolves believe his bully-ball approach on offense can work with what they have around him. He is a solid passer as well and plays a physical style that appeals to Finch. The new combination of depth coupled with anticipated leaps from Edwards, McDaniels and Reid will be relied upon to help the Wolves boost their 17th-ranked offense.
Reid played incredibly well with Gobert last season, but will Finch start him at power forward or the three-time All-Star Randle, who excelled alongside non-shooting bigs Mitchell Robinson and Isaiah Hartenstein in New York last season?
Finch and the coaching staff will work through that in training camp, which begins Tuesday.
The deal will likely take some time to complete, according to team and league sources, because the new collective bargaining agreement demands that the Knicks jump through a series of hoops to make sure it complies with the byzantine bylaws. Keita Bates-Diop will be going to Minnesota as part of the deal and the Knicks have to execute several sign-and-trades, including sending Duane Washington and DaQuan Jeffries to Charlotte, to make the money work. Other names could be involved as the deal develops.
As shocking as the deal was in real time, there had long been a feeling that something had to give eventually in Minnesota.
The Timberwolves found a path forward out of the salary cap hell that was breathing down their necks and emerged with the belief that they are better equipped to surround Edwards with talent for the next 10 years than they were with Towns’s contract on their books.
Now the biggest question left to answer is if they are still a contender in the West this season. They believe that Randle’s bucket-getting and toughness and DiVincenzo’s shooting and defense give them a real chance. Training camp is right around the corner, so it won’t take long for the answers to emerge.
(Photo of Karl-Anthony Towns: Garrett Ellwood / NBAE via Getty Images)
