How Knicks and Wolves both won Karl-Anthony Towns-Julius Randle trade

New York Times

9 hours ago

Karl-Anthony Towns was hanging out with his father and a few friends at his house in suburban Minneapolis on the night of Friday, Sept. 29, when he got a knock at his door.
Waiting on the other side was Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations Tim Connelly. He had a bottle of tequila to present as a gift, and some difficult news to deliver that he could only do face-to-face, eye-to-eye.
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The group gathered around a kitchen island and Connelly quickly let Towns know that the Timberwolves had agreed to trade him to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a future first-round draft pick from the Detroit Pistons.
The room immediately went quiet. Towns had spent the first nine years of his career in Minnesota and was two days away from reporting for his 10th training camp with the Timberwolves. Along with Anthony Edwards, Towns was a face of the franchise who had just helped lead the team to its first Western Conference finals appearance in 20 years. He understood the business of the league and knew that after a loss to the Dallas Mavericks the team could look to change its roster. But once the summer came and went without any major moves to the team's core, Towns was ready to go to work with his team and try to take the final step.
'There was no part of me that was willing to leave,' Towns told The Athletic in December. 'And life had a different path for me. I was stunned.'
He wasn't alone. Even a week before the deal was made, Connelly was content to start the season with, essentially, the same team that lost 4-1 to Dallas. He knew that the Wolves would eventually have to address their bloated payroll, but talks with the Knicks had gone nowhere and Connelly understood that for him to trade a player of Towns' caliber, he had to get financial flexibility and existing talent that would allow the Wolves to remain competitive.
Finally on that late fall Friday, the Knicks put their best offer forward, and the deal quickly took shape.
Four days earlier, across the country in New York, Randle was giving back to a community that had given him so much over the previous five years.
And, in turn, the people offered him one more gift.
Standing on a stage, surrounded by community members, former Knicks greats and current members of the franchise, as well as NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Randle was the focus at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball High School in the South Bronx. Randle was a longtime supporter of the school and, through his foundation, donates $500 for each 3-pointer he makes during the regular season.
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Unbeknownst to Randle, though, part of the groundbreaking ceremony was to honor him, and it was revealed to the multi-time All-Star that the school's basketball court would be named after him.
'What a time,' Randle said on the Knicks' Instagram account following the event. 'Happy to be a part of it. These kids are doing amazing things so make sure you guys are following it and checking it out. And I got a court named after me, too, so that's pretty cool.
'I look forward to seeing you guys soon. It's going to be a great season.'
Randle shared this moment with Knicks executives, many of whom stopped by to show support. Behind those beams of pride, though, was a secret that only a handful of the hundred or so people in attendance knew: Randle, who was far off on an agreement for a contract extension with New York, could be in his final days in orange and blue.
Not long after Connelly was at the doorstep of Towns' home, the Knicks returned to work up in Tarrytown, N.Y. The annual media day festivities had commenced and the Knicks were light on bodies. The trade between the Timberwolves and Knicks had been agreed upon and reported, but was not yet made official, so every player and coach who spoke had to pretend like the news that shook the NBA landscape over the weekend never happened.
'We got KAT?!' Josh Hart said with phony shock as he looked over at the team's public relations official following a question about the trade. 'Whoa! Wow!'
The deal took days to finalize. Once it became official, it changed the faces of two teams that had designs on making deep playoff runs in their respective conferences. And that is exactly what happened.
The Knicks and Timberwolves went through their share of growing pains in the days, weeks and months following the deal. Both were also able to persevere through those issues to advance to the conference finals. Towns played a prominent role in the Knicks' first Eastern Conference finals appearance in 25 years. Randle was one of the best players in the playoffs in Minnesota's victories over the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors in the first two rounds out West.
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In the end, one of the biggest deals of this NBA season turned out to be the rare blockbuster trade in which both teams appeared to get what they wanted.
'I think if you had asked either front office last year, 'Hey, worst-case scenario, you'll lose in the conference finals?' I think we'd have probably taken it even though we both have higher aspirations,' Connelly said this week. 'But it was fun to watch. It was fun to see all the guys in the trade do well, and they're all really, really good guys.'
Shortly before the start of training camp, the Knicks got word that center Mitchell Robinson would be sidelined for longer than anyone previously anticipated. The big man suffered multiple foot/ankle injuries the season before, and the initial belief was that Robinson would be back in time for the start of the new campaign. Then his return date got pushed back to December. Then, eventually, it got pushed back to February.
New York was all-in on this roster, with hopes of becoming serious Eastern Conference contenders. The previous December, the Knicks traded R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and a second-round pick to Toronto for OG Anunoby, who then signed a five-year, $212 million contract extension in June. New York's aspirations were further made clear in July when it traded five first-round picks to the Brooklyn Nets for swingman Mikal Bridges. Despite Bridges never making an All-Star Game, the organization saw his ability to defend and play as a complementary piece on offense as the perfect fit for a roster centered around the abilities of Jalen Brunson.
With all of that commitment, and Robinson, who was slated to be the starting center, out for the foreseeable future, the Knicks didn't want to waste a second of their window. They pivoted and went back after Towns, whom the franchise had interest in for several years.
New York saw Towns and Brunson as a damaging offensive duo. One of the best scoring guards in the league could have one of the greatest shooting big men at his disposal. The organization also viewed it as a way to get value back for Randle, as the two sides were nowhere close on a deal to keep him in New York long term. The Knicks were initially reluctant to put Donte DiVincenzo in the deal, league sources said, but ultimately viewed Towns as the perfect fit for their star guard.
Towns was reunited with executive Gersson Rosas, who was the president of basketball operations in Minnesota from 2019-20. Towns is a CAA client, and the Knicks' lead decision-makers Leon Rose and William Wesley were big players in CAA before coming to New York. The trade also connected Towns with Tom Thibodeau, who he had a tricky relationship with at one time but was the first coach to give Towns a taste of team success with the Timberwolves.
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'There is some benefit to having coached him before and to know who he is as a person, but, also, that was more than five years ago,' Thibodeau said. 'He's in a different place, he's a different player. There is going to be a learning curve and we have to adjust quickly.'
In a perfect world, the Timberwolves could have kept their entire core — Towns, Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid — together for the long run, leaning on the experience they gained in the playoffs and smoothing out the wrinkles as they chased an NBA Finals berth. But not long after the Wolves traded for Gobert in 2022, the league adopted a new collective bargaining agreement that placed significant roster-building restrictions on its big spenders.
Despite being in a mid-tier market and having a team that had won two playoff series in 35 years prior to the 2024 run to the conference finals, the Timberwolves assembled one of the league's-highest payrolls to try to set a new standard on the court. Towns, Edwards and Gobert all were making max money. McDaniels and Reid were both paid handsomely as well.
Ownership was willing to pay the luxury tax to chase a championship. What the Wolves, and many other teams, are discovering in this new financial landscape is that they cannot afford to stay above the second apron of spending for too long for other reasons. Second-apron teams cannot aggregate salaries in trades, lose their midlevel exception to sign free agents and, if they are above that apron for three of the five years, have their first-round pick frozen at the bottom of the round.
As Connelly looked at his cap sheet, Towns was set to make $49 million in 2024-25 and $171 million in the three years after that. With Edwards emerging as the player the team planned to build around, Connelly just did not see a way to keep Towns and be able to have the salary-cap flexibility to add enough talent to sustain a contender.
In an era where super-teams were going by the wayside and depth was starting to become a vital part of championship runs, Connelly looked for ways to break one of the big contracts into multiple, more affordable players. Towns, coming off of his fourth All-Star appearance and playing exceedingly well in playoff victories over the Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets, had more value than Gobert, so Connelly believed that was the best way to move forward on a roster reconstruction.
The Knicks had approached the Wolves several times over the previous year about Towns, league sources said, but Connelly was trying to thread a very fine needle. He not only wanted to gain financial flexibility, he wanted to avoid any kind of rebuilding phase after trading one of his most important players.
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Once the Knicks included DiVincenzo and the Pistons pick in their offer for Towns, they shot to the top of Connelly's list of suitors. In Randle, he could get a player at Towns' position who had been productive for years in New York, and one that had a great rapport with Wolves coach Chris Finch because of their time together in New Orleans. DiVincenzo gave them a gritty shooter off the bench to bolster their scoring and defense, and the Pistons pick, which turned out to be No. 17 in this month's draft, gave Connelly another asset to either use in a trade or add a young player to the roster to develop.
The trade not only alleviated a potential financial catastrophe down the road. It also, in the eyes of many of the Wolves' decision-makers, made them deeper, more versatile and a little tougher in the unforgiving Western Conference.
The early days of the deal were difficult in Minnesota. Towns was a somewhat polarizing player locally, having racked up astronomical numbers and individual accolades by the bushel, but unable to lift the team from the gutter by virtue of his presence alone.
There were plenty of Wolves fans who clamored for him to be traded after he struggled in the conference finals against the Mavericks. But Randle as the headliner of a deal for Towns was underwhelming for many, and Connelly started to take a lot of heat when the Wolves started the season 8-10 and were still just 22-21 in late January.
Randle and DiVincenzo were both shocked by the trade, both needing to uproot young families days before camp. Both needed time to acclimate to a new city, new teammates and new coaches.
And with Towns putting up huge numbers from the start in New York, the restlessness in the Target Center crowd was palpable. It reached full-on panic on Dec. 19, when Towns made his return to Minnesota and put up 32 points and 20 rebounds in a 133-107 Knicks wipeout.
The Wolves tried to preach patience in the moment, but it wasn't easy for a scarred fan base that is used to the men's sports teams in the Twin Cities disappointing them. No men's professional team in Minnesota has won a title since the Twins in 1991, a drought that has conditioned sports fans in the area to expect the worst.
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'It's not normal to make a trade the day before the season,' DiVincenzo said after that game. 'So both sides, it takes time to adjust and great things take time. More so on our side, I believe that, but also on their side. KAT's playing really well, but it's going to take time to mesh and other guys adjust to what he does.'
The Wolves missed Towns the most on two fronts. First, his chemistry with Gobert was the best on the team. Towns willingly included Gobert in the offense, throwing lobs to him in the half court to make sure opponents had to keep an eye on him on offense. One of the low points of the season for Minnesota came in a game at Toronto in November when Gobert purposely lingered in the lane for a 3-second violation because he was frustrated that Randle was not throwing him the ball.
Secondly, one of the big things that held Minnesota back during the regular season was a frustrating lack of urgency against teams that were short-handed or languishing at the bottom of the standings. The Wolves lost in Portland twice, at home to Washington, at Utah and to Miami without Jimmy Butler, Milwaukee without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, and the Pacers without four of their starters. Team personnel privately acknowledged that having Towns' sheer talent likely would have been enough to help them win many of those games, which could have helped their playoff seeding.
Even with Towns' fast start, Knicks fans felt some uneasiness as well. New York basketball returned to relevancy over the previous few seasons behind a tough, rugged team that embodied a lot of what the city grew to love.
The 2023-24 Knicks were the epitome of that. That group competed every night. It defended at a high level. It was a breath of fresh air for a fan base that had spent a lot of time over the last 20 years talking itself into players like Frank Ntilikina and Damyean Dotson, just hoping for something to believe in.
Randle wasn't everyone's cup of tea. His poor defense and unwillingness to move the ball at times earned him a lot of haters in New York. However, there was always a level of respect surrounding him. The Knicks' return to stability coincided with Randle's time in New York. From 2021-2024, Randle helped New York earn three playoff appearances, two of which ended in the second round. The Knicks made the playoffs zero times between 2014-2020. In Randle's five seasons in New York, he made three All-Star appearances. Yet, a large section of the fan base wasn't upset that the Knicks decided to move on from him.
In fact, it was DiVincenzo's departure that provided the most angst.
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New Yorkers grew to love the ''Nova Knicks,' the trio of DiVincenzo, Brunson and Josh Hart. Their camaraderie was palpable on the floor and off of it. The three college teammates reunited to help bring the franchise its first 50-win season in a decade. DiVincenzo's game-winning 3-pointer in a 2024 second-round playoff matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers will be remembered by Knicks' faithful forever.
The departure of DiVincenzo depleted the Knicks' bench, which had already taken a hit with Robinson's injury and the financial limitations the franchise faced after its recent moves. There was worry that Towns wouldn't upgrade the team enough to warrant also giving up DiVincenzo and one of the few valuable draft picks that the Knicks had left at their disposal.
Through all of the pain and suffering of the first three months of the season, the Wolves managed to hold together. Oddly enough, it may have been injuries to Randle and DiVincenzo in late January and early February that allowed the team to figure things out.
Randle missed 13 games with a groin injury and DiVincenzo was out 19 games with turf toe, an injury that came five games after he joined the starting lineup and began playing well.
The two watched from the bench as the Wolves soldiered on, and Randle said the time observing allowed him to gain a greater understanding of where he best fit with this team. He returned to the lineup in a win over Phoenix on March 2, which kicked off a 17-4 surge to the end of the regular season that moved the Timberwolves out of the Play-In Tournament field and into the sixth seed in the West.
Randle became more of a playmaker than a lead scorer, DiVincenzo started to knock down shots from the outside and the Wolves stormed past the Lakers and Warriors in the first two rounds of the playoffs, beating both teams 4-1 to earn a return trip to the conference finals.
Where last year's run seemingly came out of nowhere, this one was more satisfying because none of it was easy.
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'Just sticking together, having each other's backs and just battling through adversity together, not letting hard times split us up as a group,' Randle said after beating the Warriors. 'But us having the mental toughness and determination to say we're going to figure this thing out, because all of us, as a whole, believe how good we could be as a team. I'm extremely proud of everybody within this organization and this team.'
After starting the season 6-6, New York won nine of its next 12 games and then rattled off a nine-game winning streak that helped put any unrest at ease.
The Knicks were firmly one of the NBA's best teams by the start of the New Year, with an offense that had come together like the decision-makers envisioned. Brunson was playing at an elite level. Towns was, too. The skilled big man shot an absurd 43 percent from 3 from the start of the season until Dec. 31. As a collective, New York had the second best offense in basketball during that period. Even the defense was in the middle of the pack. The Knicks were 24-10 after Jan. 1.
Both Towns and Brunson were named All-Stars.
'It's important for us to continue to stay consistent,' Brunson said during the winning streak. 'That's what we're working on.'
Yet, when the calendar turned, the Knicks' flaws started to show more regularly. The offense, statistically, was tremendous through the first 35 games, but the team struggled to generate 3-point attempts.
In the final months of the year, teams started consistently guarding Towns with smaller, athletic wings and putting their centers on Hart. That mucked up New York's offense and led to a major decline from January on.
Both Brunson and Towns continued to put up tremendous counting stats, but the offense as a whole wasn't nearly as dynamic as it had been. From Jan. 1 until the end of the regular season, the Knicks' offense ranked 16th in the NBA. They were 28-21 in their final 49 games. New York couldn't beat the NBA's best teams, going 0-10 against the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers and Oklahoma City Thunder. The Knicks even had a tough time with good and mediocre teams, squeezing out nail-biting victories seemingly every other night. If not for Brunson's heroics time and time again during a stretch that lasted from the end of February to early March, the Knicks might have dropped as far as the No. 5 seed in the playoffs.
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However, the team's talent overcame most of its flaws. The Knicks ended up narrowly passing the likes of Indiana and Milwaukee in the standings. New York finished the regular season as the No. 3 seed, setting up a matchup with the young, feisty Pistons.
Despite having the more talented team, New York struggled with Detroit. The series went six games and the Knicks trailed going into the fourth quarter on multiple occasions. Heroics from both Brunson and Towns, as well as Bridges, allowed the Knicks to escape the first round, and it set up a second-round matchup with the defending-champion Celtics, a team that was worlds better than New York during the regular season.
The playoffs appeared like they would go the same way. The Knicks were down by 20 in Game 1 but pulled off a comeback for the ages. They did it again in Game 2. New York trailed by 14 or more points in nearly every game of the series against the Celtics but still found ways to win in six games. The team built an identity as a resilient group that didn't quit. Towns' defense was as good as it had been all season behind Thibodeau's plan to allow him to guard Boston's star players one-on-one.
New York, for the first time in 25 years, went to the Eastern Conference finals.
'When you're in these situations, especially in the playoffs, we had that belief that we will never lose,' Towns said. 'If you want to go deep, you have to have that. I think we showed that in this series and it was special for us. In the last series, we showed we were able to finish games in the fourth quarter and, even in the close games, we'll find ways to win. This series was different because we had ourselves in deficits that were 20-plus and still found a way to win. That's a testament to these guys.'
In the end, the results speak for themselves.
The Timberwolves made back-to-back conference finals for the first time in franchise history. In an interesting twist, they actually improved on offense without Towns, going from 17th in offensive efficiency last season to eighth this year, but got worse on defense, falling from first last season to sixth this year. They won seven fewer games in the regular season without Towns, but ended up in exactly the same spot at the end.
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DiVincenzo was a little streaky at times, but he gave the Wolves a tough-minded shooter off the bench with a great contract — $24.5 million combined over the next two seasons.
'The fans were amazing for me and my family,' DiVincenzo said. 'They made it feel like home right away. And comfortable. It's just the beginning. It was a helluva year.'
Randle averaged 23.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.9 assists over the first two rounds of the playoffs and quickly grew to enjoy living in Minnesota with his wife, Kendra, their two young boys and a baby girl who arrived last month.
'I definitely found a comfort level and got used to the cold and blizzards in March and all that different type of stuff,' Randle said with a smile. 'So it was cool, man, and I enjoyed it, and I'll probably spend my summer here.'
For all of the good feelings about what Minnesota accomplished and endured, there is some uncertainty. Randle can opt-out of his contract and become a free agent this summer. Through the first two rounds of the playoffs, he seemed destined to sign a new deal with the Wolves to stay for the long term. But Randle's struggles against Oklahoma City in the conference finals — he averaged 17.4 points and 3.6 turnovers in the 4-1 loss — make those decisions less straightforward.
Connelly said that he hopes to bring Randle back, but also did not rule out another big trade if one presents itself and can get the Wolves closer to a championship.
'Fingers crossed, our ability to be a little more flexible could serve us well this season,' Connelly said.
The Wolves' end of the deal was also aided by the unexpectedly successful season from the Pistons. The pick they acquired from New York in the trade was lottery protected, but Detroit advanced to the playoffs, allowing it to convey this year, which is important because the Wolves do not have their own pick because of the Gobert trade.
Ultimately, this Knicks season was a success. The team won 51 regular-season games, one more than last year and the most in over a decade. It reached the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years. Both Brunson and Towns earned All-NBA honors.
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Yet, the vibe around the organization wasn't that of one that just reached new heights. For most of the second half of the season, the team spoke about pushing egos to the sides. They spoke about sacrificing. The Knicks were a collection of talented players that never consistently jelled as one.
'We have a bunch of great guys in that locker room,' Towns said. 'We hope to put ourselves in this position again and succeed next time.'
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The trade helped them go further than they have in decades, and they still weren't satisfied. They fired Thibodeau after the season ended with a Game 6 loss to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals and will continue their journey toward the elusive NBA title with a new voice on the sideline.
Whomever takes over as head coach has to find a way to maximize a core that had a negative net rating from Jan. 1 on. The new coach has to find a way to hide the defensive deficiencies of its two star players.
With that said, it's not out of the realm of possibility for New York to follow up its coaching decision with major roster moves. Towns, based off his contract alone, could be a casualty if the Knicks decide to go big-game hunting.
Overall, though, Towns' first season in New York was a success. He was one of the 15 best players in the NBA, finished second in the league in rebounding with 12.8 rebounds per game and delivered one of the most memorable moments of the season when he scored 20 points in the fourth quarter of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals to rally the Knicks to a win over the Pacers. He was given the nickname 'Bodega KAT,' his Dominican roots and late mother's affinity for the Knicks fostering a natural connection with the city.
However, with the franchise's determination to bring a championship back to the Mecca for the first time in over 50 years, anything could be on the table this summer.
'Our organization is singularly focused on winning a championship for our fans,' Rose said in a statement following the firing of Thibodeau, the most successful Knicks coach this century.
Zooming out, both teams came out winners in the trade, a rarity for a deal of this magnitude. They were two of the NBA's final four, thrilling their fan bases with exhilarating rides to the conference finals.
And yet, they both feel like unfinished products, still searching for the final pieces to move them from contenders to champions.
(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Al Bello / Getty Images, Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images)