Trade talks that persisted forever somehow came together quickly. The New York Knicks are about to employ Karl-Anthony Towns — and the deal took them only a nano-decade to get done.
The Knicks have coveted Towns ever since team president Leon Rose took over the organization in 2020, when Rose left his former post at CAA, the same agency that represents Towns. Years ago, once New York deemed itself ready to hunt for a big name, it called the Minnesota Timberwolves to express interest in the sweet-shooting big man, league sources said. Then, the Knicks did so again. And again. But chatter never materialized into what anyone could call negotiations.
The Knicks liked Towns. They wanted his team to know that. Conversations would often become circular. The Knicks would register their interest in Towns, one of the most versatile scoring 7-footers in league history. The Timberwolves — who were not actively shopping their starting power forward, a 20-and-10 forward who can shoot like a guard and pivot like a Brunson — would respond similarly each time; with something along the lines of, “OK, then make us an offer.”
Occasionally, the Knicks would spew out concepts. Years ago, they even outlined the scraps of what could have grown into a Towns-Immanuel Quickley swap, league sources said. But this spitballing didn’t progress into meaningful negotiations. The Knicks and Wolves weren’t discussing a Towns trade with any gusto. At least, not until Friday.
The Knicks spent this week canvassing the league’s center market, according to league sources, with their starter, Mitchell Robinson, now out for the beginning part of the upcoming season. Once they mentioned they were willing to part with not just Julius Randle but also Donte DiVincenzo, traction began to build with the Wolves.
Now, they have agreed to a deal.
The Knicks will acquire the four-time All-Star Towns, The Athletic reported late Friday night. Randle, DiVincenzo, Keita Bates-Diop and the Detroit Pistons’ protected 2025 first-round pick will go to the Timberwolves, league sources said. Because both New York and Minnesota are above the first apron, a quirk in the new collective bargaining agreement requires the Knicks to unload another $8.8 million or more. Some of it must involve a third team. In short, this simple three-for-one exchange will not be the final version of the deal.
At least some of the dollars will come from New York signing and trading current free agents from last year’s roster. The Knicks will sign-and-trade DaQuan Jeffries to the Charlotte Hornets, The Athletic reported, as part of the Towns deal but his salary alone is not enough to make the money work. Other tinier moves will come, as well.
New York is months removed from a 50-win campaign that carried it only one victory away from the Eastern Conference finals. It was set to enter this season — which is close as can be; media day is Monday — with depth as its strength. The same players who head coach Tom Thibodeau would not remove from the court during the 2024 postseason, DiVincenzo and Josh Hart, were ready to come off the bench.
What a difference one move, and years of coveting, can make.
For the second time this offseason, the same one that the Knicks traded four unprotected first-round picks for Mikal Bridges, they have revamped their identity.
They will enter training camp with a projected starting five of smothering size, splashy shooting and facilitators all over: Jalen Brunson, Hart, Bridges, OG Anunoby and Towns. The bench is not nearly as daunting as it was earlier in the day Friday. Miles “Deuce” McBride is the sixth man. Precious Achiuwa will see time, as could Cameron Payne, the former third-string point guard whose veteran presence could propel him toward minutes. Maybe Jericho Sims gets a chance. Or the rookie, Tyler Kolek. Or one of the veterans New York signed to training camp deals, Chuma Okeke, Landry Shamet or Marcus Morris Sr.
This won’t look at all like anyone expected just days ago. It is a new era.
The Knicks will never get to see if that January run, the one that vaulted them to a 12-2 record after trading for Anunoby and before Randle’s season ended with a shoulder dislocation, was a mirage or the initial sign of greatness. They will never be “the Nova Knicks,” the group where anyone who went to that school just outside of Philadelphia was supposedly indispensable. So much for that.
We all thought the Knicks’ star trade was the deal for Bridges, for whom they unloaded all of their best draft picks, ones they had been saving for years in the hopes of landing that one big name.
Nuh uh.
They had another move in them.
The Knicks are excited about how Towns can complement Brunson, Anunoby and Bridges, according to league sources. Brunson-Towns pick-and-rolls will be a nightmare to guard with those two wings crouched in either corner ready to catch and shoot. Towns can barrel to the basket and score down low. He can pop to the arc and bury 3s. He’s not just a spot-up shooter, either. He’ll hoist jumpers from any angle, at any level. He shot 42 percent from deep a season ago but also roasts from midrange and around the hoop.
The Knicks can now stagger Brunson and Towns so that at least one of them is in the game at all times, ensuring that an All-Star can prop up the offense for 48 minutes.
Towns can make up for what they will lose with Randle’s post-up game and then some. The Wolves didn’t send Towns to the block as often as they once did over the past couple of seasons, when fellow big man Rudy Gobert would hang around the basket, too. But the aforementioned projected starting lineup would allow him to pulverize defenders inside. And if double teams arrived, he could kick to capable, open shooters.
He will help with the rebounding, a potential weakness as long as Robinson is hurt. Robinson is targeting a return in December or January, according to a league source, but that league source was also specific about the proper language to use. It’s not definitive Robinson will be on the court by then; the Knicks will monitor his rehab, and if he needs more time, then he will get it. Even once he returns, no one can know what his conditioning will be like.
Once Robinson is back, the Knicks will have options. Does he come off the bench? Or do they go with a massive starting lineup that includes both Robinson and Towns, mimicking the strategy that helped Minnesota to the Western Conference finals last spring, along with Bridges and Anunoby?
Of course, more pressing questions come first.
What happens to the defense with Towns starting at center?
One stat that swayed the Knicks about Towns was his plus-minus numbers, according to a league source. The Timberwolves have been better, sometimes way better, when he’s on the court for all nine seasons of his career. But most of that is because of his offensive prowess.
Towns has always struggled anchoring a defense. It’s why the Wolves traded for Gobert. What happens when opponents put Brunson on the front end and Towns on the back end of pick-and-rolls over and over, dizzying the Knicks’ two All-Stars on the way to the rim? Will elite helpers on the perimeter — and there’s a good argument that Bridges and Anunoby will suffocate opponents like no other perimeter duo in the NBA — along with Hart be enough to keep hopeful infiltrators out of the paint?
Thibodeau has worked with Towns before when the coach headed the Timberwolves and Towns, now 28, was coming of age. They were an imperfect match then. Before a game at Madison Square Garden last season, Towns put any question that the two have issues to rest.
“I ain’t got no problems with Thibs,” Towns said then. “We squashed that. I still look at Thibs as one of the best coaches, best X’s and O’s guys I’ve ever been able to play for. He’s a winner.”
A source close to Thibodeau insisted the coach feels the same way.
“If a guy can play,” the source said, “Thibs wants him.”
And Towns can play.
But will it push the Knicks over the hump? Are the starters talented enough to take them to the conference finals? Could they down the defending-champion Boston Celtics once they get there?
If this team was all in after executing the Bridges trade, then it just flipped over couch cushions and throttled through old jacket pockets to find enough coins and a $20 bill to add to the pot.
The Knicks have now traded six first-round picks, four of them unprotected, Bojan Bogdanovic, DiVincenzo and Randle for Bridges and Towns. No one, save for Brunson, is untouchable.
Only a couple of days ago, a contingent of Knicks executives traveled to the Bronx to support what was a big day for Randle. The power forward — the same one who chose New York when no one else wanted to, who extended for below his market value so he could commit to the organization long term, who grew into a three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA performer under Thibodeau, who helped resurrect a once-crestfallen franchise that’s now made the playoffs three times in four years and enters this season a contender for the first time in decades — was the man of the day at a construction site not far from Yankee Stadium.
For years, Randle had raised money for the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball Charter School. He is now responsible for $1.3 million in donations. On Wednesday, at the groundbreaking of a new building, the school announced it would name its basketball court after him.
The Knicks brass was in attendance, everyone from Rose to executive VP of basketball operations William Wesley to Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Thibodeau, John Starks and others. From the looks of it, you would have thought it was a group in complete synergy.
But things change quickly in the NBA — even if it takes years.
(Top image of Karl-Anthony Towns and Tom Thibodeau: Bart Young / NBAE via Getty Images)
