At first glance, the Karl-Anthony Towns trade looks like a massive win for the Knicks. They get an elite player in his prime who’s been on the All-NBA team, and Towns gives them some essential size they desperately need after letting Isaiah Hartenstein sign with the Oklahoma Thunder in free agency.
There are caveats, however. Towns comes with some serious warts that led to Minnesota making this move, and ultimately it was his performance in the playoffs that made him expendable.
The KAT Caveats
Towns has always been something of an anomaly. He’s a great scorer who can give you points in the paint or from beyond the arc, and when Towns is hot he’s virtually unstoppable. Given the fact that he’s a seven-footer--albeit not necessarily a true center--he looks like a player any championship contender would want on their roster.
Then you get to the warts. Karl-Anthony Towns may be a seven-footer, but size-wise he often plays like a smaller wing player, and his reluctance to play a lot down low means you have to design your offense around that. He’s never been able to fully utilize his size down low, but Minnesota was willing to compensate for that by adding defensive ace Rudy Gobert.
Towns can be difficult, too. He’s not a high-motor guy by any means, and he’s feuded with coaches and management about his role during the last few years. He’s been accused of being soft and of being obsessed with stats, so those issues are part of the KAT package, too.
KAT’s playoff performance was the straw that sealed the deal
Despite those issues and flaws, Towns’ sheer talent still made him a good fit for most rosters. The kind of reliable scoring he brings to the table is hard to find, and so are seven-footers who offer the level of production that KAT provides.
Then we come to last year’s playoffs, and that’s where things changed. The Wolves were constructed specifically built to beat Denver, and Towns more than held up his end in that series. The Wolves were able to use their twin-towers approach to neutralize Jokic and capitalize on Denver’s lack of depth to get Minnesota to within a step of the promised land.
Then they met the Mavericks. Suddenly Minnesota’s size became a weakness, as both Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving were able to take advantage of larger defenders who lacked the quickness and skills to stay with them.
Both Towns and Anthony Edwards came up short, and it was Towns who was the bigger disappointment given Edwards’ youth and inexperience. KAT was supposed to counter Doncic and Irving’s scoring with his all-around game, but instead he was dominated by the likes of rookie Dereck Lively II, who made KAT look small when Towns tried to work in the paint.
The last image we have of Towns in Minnesota is of him clanging one jumper after another down the stretch against Dallas, then stumbling and tossing up more bricks when he tried to drive the lane. The Wolves are already committed to Edwards, and they quickly decided that he’s not a $40-50 million a year player going forward.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau now gets a second go to help KAT reach is considerable potential. But they haven’t exactly been best buds over the years, even though Thibs is saying the appropriate nice things about the trade for now.
What Julius Randle represents in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade
Unless Randle changes both his game and his nature, he represents a cheaper placeholder, pure and simple. He provides some size and points in the paint, but Randle is also a ball-stopper whose game could easily hinder Edwards development, perhaps even to the point where Edwards takes a step back. That’s the big risk in this deal, and Wolves coach Chris Finch is going to have his hands full with these two personalities.
The plus with Randle is that he comes cheap by NBA standards at $30 million a year, and Donte DeVincenzo is a nice, affordable addition who adds shooting and defensive toughness. Randle is only on the books through the end of next year, which means he becomes an expiring contract when Minnesota decides how to reconfigure its roster.
It’s going to be a fascinating year for Finch—the best case is that it’s a transition year that gives them a shot at a deep playoff run, but the opposite is a disaster in which Minnesota once again turns into a mess.