September 28, 2024
Kyle Ross/Imagn Images
Karl-Anthony Towns is reportedly being traded to the New York Knicks, adding new life to the skilled center's rivalry with Joel Embiid.
Late Friday night — just days before training camps open across the NBA — a stunning trade sent shockwaves across the basketball world.
The New York Knicks swung their second out-of-nowhere blockbuster of the offseason, acquiring four-time All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns from the Minnesota Timberwolves in exchange for a package centered around All-Star forward Julius Randle and prized sharpshooter Donte DiVincenzo.
While the exact terms of the deal have yet to be confirmed — the Charlotte Hornets are expected to join the deal as a third team to help New York shed the requisite salary to facilitate the deal — the core pieces of the deal have been confirmed, with Towns heading to the Knicks and the Timberwolves adding Randle, DiVincenzo and a protected first-round pick. The basic framework of the trade was first reported by The Athletic.
BREAKING: The Minnesota Timberwolves are nearing a trade to send All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks, sources tell me and @JonKrawczynski. pic.twitter.com/cFbrvj1c9l
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 28, 2024
After beginning the offseason by acquiring a long-time target — Brooklyn Nets wing Mikal Bridges — the Knicks found a way to pounce on Towns, a North Jersey native whom they had been reportedly interested in for several years. The franchise has pushed all of its chips in on a team built around Jalen Brunson, Towns, Bridges and supporting pieces such as OG Anunoby and Josh Hart.
If the Bridges trade had not already done so, with this shocking move, the Knicks have formally announced their serious intentions to dethrone the Boston Celtics and separate themselves from other Eastern Conference hopefuls like the Sixers.
While the Celtics should remain the clear favorite to win the Eastern Conference — Boston doing so would mark their third trip to the NBA Finals in four years — there is no question that they are feeling the maximum amount of pressure from the teams chasing them. The Sixers signed Paul George to a four-year contract worth about $212 million in between New York's two franchise-altering trades, and now both of the Celtics' chief competitors have loaded up to do everything in their power to prevent a dynastic run occurring in Boston.
The Knicks project to have an elite starting unit comprised of Brunson, Bridges, Anunoby, Hart and Towns. However, their bench features plenty of question marks as they swap two players for one. But for a 28-year-old with a resume as impressive as that of Towns and at least three more years of team control, the cost seems modest.
Randle is a former All-Star in his own right, but his place in a Brunson-centric offense was unclear as he entered a contract year. DiVincenzo is a very valuable role player, but not the kind who a team refuses to move in order to land a player with Towns' talent and pedigree.
Towns fills New York's most obvious hole; their center depth chart grew more and more ominous as the offseason went on. First, incumbent starter Isaiah Hartenstein departed to ink a lucrative deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder. And just last week, news broke that Mitchell Robinson — expected to reclaim that starting role — would miss at least the first month or two of the 2024-25 season as he recovers from yet another injury. Towns is not a perfect player, and he has dealt with issues of his own related to durability in recent years, but he is an All-Star-caliber player who also happens to be arguably the single best shooter of any seven-footer in the history of the NBA.
Perhaps the biggest winner in all of this is Brunson, who was as lethal of a scoring threat as there was in the NBA last season — particularly during the playoffs — with floor spacing that was considerably worse than what he will operate with moving forward. The Knicks are making clear sacrifices with their massive moves this summer — they might lack the overpowering muscle that helped them bully the Sixers into a first-round playoff exit last season — but they have a lot more talent and a whole lot more skill than they did a year ago.
The Sixers and Knicks now enter the season with somewhat similar team constructs. Each team will rely on a point guard, center and wing as its three primary scorers, and those players will be surrounded in their starting units by two multi-positional wings. Both teams' projected starting fives are undersized by conventional measures, but have the requisite versatility and skill to outweigh those concerns:
| Position | Sixers | Knicks |
| PG | Tyrese Maxey | Jalen Brunson |
| SG | Kelly Oubre Jr. | Mikal Bridges |
| SF | Paul George | OG Anunoby |
| PF | Caleb Martin | Josh Hart |
| C | Joel Embiid | Karl-Anthony Towns |
It would be foolish to ignore that Towns' entrance into the budding Sixers-Knicks rivalry reignites a flame in the strife he and Sixers center Joel Embiid once shared. The two coming to blows at the beginning of the 2019-20 season — a brawl which led to both stars being suspended for multiple games each — will never be forgotten, even as both Towns and Embiid have attempted to minimize their disdain for one another in recent years.
Now, the stories write themselves: two teams battling each other as they try to upend the mighty defending champions, with dueling seven-footers who have plenty of history.
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