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Brian Windhorst, ESPN Senior Writer
Championship contenders make trades with one another rare, and you don’t have to look too far to see why.
Just one year ago this week, the Milwaukee Bucks made a blockbuster trade with the Portland Trail Blazers to acquire Damian Lillard, but it inadvertently resulted in Jrue Holiday landing with the Boston Celtics. Holiday proved to be the last important player in Boston’s quest to build a championship team in Milwaukee’s own conference.
But the New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves each have unique problems, and they are the best solutions. It created an awkward and unexpected alliance that led to the two contenders replacing two former All-NBA players — Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle — before the start of training camp, as spicy a move as you’ll ever see. in September.
The Knicks’ problems start at center, especially the lack of starters. New York has built a wall around the extent of Mitchell Robinson’s foot problem – Leon Rose’s administration is a good secret, which helps the Knicks not lose influence in this trade negotiation. But internally, New York plans to keep Robinson out for at least three more months. Will it be more? I hope not, but no one knows. Isaiah Hartenstein, who was Robinson’s backup two seasons ago and started 49 games last season, left in free agency, leaving New York dangerously thin — and short — up front.
Meanwhile, there has been no progress on contract extension talks over the summer with Randle, who will likely hit free agency in 2025. Randle, an All-Star each of the past two seasons, has seen the franchise change around him. nine months ago, and he wasn’t sure where exactly he would fit in with a team built around Jalen Brunson and his former Villanova teammates. Randle knows that he will play more minutes from the center position as he enters his contract year.
There’s also this: If there’s one player Rose would have coveted more than Brunson, a de facto member of his family when he was hired to be the Knicks’ president in 2020, it might have been Towns. Both with deep Jersey roots, Rose has been in contact with Towns since he was a teenager and, as an agent, has been with him from his Kentucky days until he was selected No. 1 overall as a max contract player.
And now, Towns is more available than ever. Wolves are trying to win the championship amid a financial and ownership crisis.
Minnesota, a franchise that has generally operated frugally for decades, is facing heavy losses this season, the source said, because of the many luxury tax bills that came due to the new contracts for Towns and Anthony Edwards. But it’s not just about this year; The next few years are potentially monetarily punishing.
Attorneys for longtime owner Glen Taylor and a prospective ownership group led by Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez are set to begin arbitration on Nov. 4 with a decision expected in the new year.
After the discovery process in the summer, the Lore group is confident that it will win and has obtained all the finances in order, the source said. The plan is to come into the process with more than $900 million in escrow with the backing of billionaire Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The group will also share working capital of more than $200 million, sources said, indicating that it can complete the purchase of the last 60% of the $1.5 billion transaction and then be able to finance the potential losses that will be incurred.
But even though it was shown that Taylor broke the terms of the sales agreement last spring when he took the team off the market, the arbitrator’s decision was not the final word. Another 29 governors will vote to sell. If Taylor doesn’t want to sell again, will his partner of the last four decades turn against him? Lore may have won in court but lost at the club, so he and Rodriguez have spent the past year trying to drum up support in dozens of meetings with other owners. There seems to be a lawsuit on the horizon at any rate.
Meanwhile, Wolves team president Tim Connelly has one of the best executive deals in all of sport. He has a lucrative $40 million contract to run the team and has negotiated a free clause so he can leave whenever he wants, especially since he doesn’t know who will be the boss. He could be one of the most coveted free agents in the summer of 2025.
And while Connelly put together a roster that reached the conference finals in 2024 — only the second time in franchise history that the Timberwolves advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs — Minnesota’s situation was further complicated when Edwards made the All-NBA team last season. , getting a $41 million bump in his contract. They are worth every penny but nothing is cheap anymore.
Towns started a four-year, $224 million extension signed back when he looked like a franchise centerpiece player in 2022. Not unlike Randle, Towns has seen a change in role since the deal, as he will be Edwards’ backup.
Last year, Towns was proud that he earned a spot on the All-Star team when he handed the reins to Edwards. Towns had previously sought assurances from Connelly that he would not be traded because he wanted the role. Connelly, who has built powerhouse teams in Denver and now Minnesota, said all the right things at the meeting but ultimately failed to deliver on those promises, sources said. In fairness, he couldn’t while looking at this landscape.
As this all plays out, one of Connelly’s big moves, retaining backup center Naz Reid, became a masterstroke. Reid developed into the Sixth Man of the Year in the NBA, averaging 13.5 points and shooting 41.4% from 3-point range. Reid isn’t Towns, but he’s a very effective long-range shooter playing with defender Rudy Gobert.
Gobert and Reid have player options for next season and, while Gobert won’t be leaving $46 million on the table, it’s hard to imagine the Wolves paying those two along with Towns’ $53 million number in 2025-26 (Reid is set to make $15 million if he chooses an option).
You throw all this together and you see how last Friday night in September, Towns sent for Randle and Donte DiVincenzo.
The Knicks got their franchise center — thanks to Brunson, who is now the team’s third-highest paid player after leaving $113 million on the table during the summer extension — and the Wolves saved eight figures this year and potentially dozens. another million in the coming season while opening up more space for Reid and bolstering the bench with big shooters.
When the smoke clears all of this, it becomes apparent how difficult it is to do. There will be a number of players signed and traded to make this work with the Charlotte Hornets, sources said.
The Knicks are expected to twist themselves into an impressive pretzel not to give up other rotation players, the source said, and somehow get less than $ 200,000 below the second apron, which they are not allowed to publish, and pay some drafts to grease it. .
It’s unclear whether Randle would be happy with the situation to extend his contract in Minnesota or if the Wolves might end up paying him. Or, frankly, who would make that decision on the team’s side.
It is questionable whether the Knicks should take a few months to watch a new team loaded with Villanova to see (1) center Randle’s ability to play, (2) Mitchell’s progress from surgery, (3) What other centers may be available on the market.
But it’s also not unreasonable to imagine the Wolves and Knicks playing in the Finals in June. And that, after all this, is the bottom line.
