Hypothetical Karl-Anthony Towns trades are pretty hard to come up with.
It makes sense: KAT, a former first overall pick who is usually good for 25 points a night and at least 40% from downtown, is paid max contract money and has three more years remaining on his deal. He is also one of the worst defenders for his position. He hasn’t been the best player on a team that has won more than 36 games in the six seasons he’s played in the NBA so far. And he has never once made a convincing case that he’s the best center in a league that is moving away from big men.
So, yeah, in the words of Zoomers, “idk lmao.”
Would I be champing at the bit to trade for Towns if I was just a generic .500 NBA team? Probably not. The bidding price for Towns is undoubtedly high, and if he lands in a situation where winning is expected, where he isn’t able to contribute, and that team sputters or gets worse, Towns’ value would plummet — in the same vein of Tyreke Evans and Michael Beasley before him. That would be a pretty big gamble when players I have more certainty about routinely crop up as dissatisfied with their current situation about every six months in the NBA.
But the outlook on Towns as a trade target would flip instantly in a situation where I was the same generic .500 NBA team and an impactful player who might be looking to bolt to greener pastures is openly lobbying me to pair him with Towns. This would be especially true in a situation where the player had only a year or two remaining on their contract. In that situation, the right trade package would entice me. It would be a little lighter on future picks and a little heavier on young players — even more so if they were youngsters who didn’t fit well with the existing star.
All of a sudden, instead of a massive bet on Towns with limited upside and a potentially disastrous downside, the payoff has the chance of going through the roof. And the downside if the trade blows up is about the same situation as you’d be in if you didn’t make the trade.
This is likely part of the calculus of the most recent and definitely plausible hypothetical trade that Bill Simmons floated on a recent podcast. Karl-Anthony Towns for DeAndre Ayton. Straight up, no other picks. Former number-one overall pick center for former number-one overall pick center.
So, what do I, Mayor of Trade Towns — um, Town (come back to me on that one, I’ll have something better) — have to say about this offer?
Well, I want to get off the Towns Train (see, that was so much better!). Then again, I’m hoping to make a move that gives the Minnesota Timberwolves a clear course of action.
DeAndre Ayton is a very efficient offensive weapon and a far better and more consistent defender than experts expected him to be when he came out of Arizona in 2018. The question isn’t whether or not Ayton is a good player; he certainly is. It’s whether or not it would be essentially a fair swap, because I think this would be a good starting point for a trade. Maybe throw in a high-lottery protected first or Jalen Smith, the scarcely playing 10th-overall pick in the most recent draft. I would hope that the Timberwolves would want a little more than just one player for Towns. Even though I think they should be seriously weighing options to move on from him, it seems unlikely his value would be as low as only a DeAndre Ayton-type.
For this sake of simplicity, let’s assume that it’s a package in the neighborhood of Ayaton, Smith, and a first-round pick. Yes, the pick is valuable, and yes, Smith is almost undoubtedly valuable in at least some capacity — even if it’s only as unknown potential. But clearly, the Timberwolves would be making the trade with their eyes set on Ayton.
If Ayton is efficient and at least a passable defender, isn’t he exactly what you want, Spencer? Even if he has a little less of an offensive load than KAT and isn’t a floor spacer, this is an upgrade for the team you’ve been asking for, right Spencer?
In a vacuum: yes.
In this exact situation with this exact team: no.
I would go as far as to say that taking that trade for Ayton would needlessly elongate the Towns problem, just by rolling it into a different player with the same general issue.
In trading for KAT for Ayton, the Timberwolves might as well be handing Ayton and his agent a blank check. Ayton would be extension-eligible this summer and then a restricted free agent the following summer if there was no deal agreed to.
If the Timberwolves traded for Ayton, they would be committing one of the NBA’s cardinal sins: trading for a player right before they’re about to become a restricted free agent. This becomes especially true if you’re giving up your team’s superstar for this third- or fourth-year man.
Ayton is a slam dunk to get a max contract as an RFA, either through an extension or an offer sheet. Domantas Sabonis got nearly $20 million a year, and Ayton is a more efficient offensive player and a far better defender. But I’ll humor the argument that he’s not a for-sure max candidate. That’s where human nature kicks in.
The sunken cost fallacy is precisely that, a fallacy. But that doesn’t mean that Gersson Rosas won’t feel the heat of it during negotiations. If you’re Rosas, you can’t lose the crown jewel of the KAT trade after a year-plus on the roster. Every other team would know this, so if any of the other 29 teams covet Ayton, their GM would understand that they can’t just be the highest bidder; they have to outbid Rosas, or, more accurately, his job security. Because you can’t trade a player for Towns then lose him for nothing.
So what would the max entail?
A max contract would basically be tying the team to someone who has never been the best player on a playoff team. In fact, when he was second best and paired with All-Star Devin Booker, that team didn’t make the playoffs either. Yes, this was in Ayton’s second season. Yes, as the third-best player on a team, that team is second in the Western Conference. But doesn’t that kind of beg the most crucial question: The Timberwolves have one sure-fire great trade chip, so why on earth would they blow it to secure a DeAndre Ayton-type instead of a treasure trove of picks to try to nab their Booker or Chris Paul?
Seriously, I can’t come up with a good answer to that question.
Because there isn’t one.
Trading KAT for Ayton is a gamble this team doesn’t need to make, and if it doesn’t work, it would just be digging the Timberwolves deeper into a pit they’ve been struggling to work out of since they traded away Kevin Love.
This team needs a restart. Not another big.
The Timberwolves need to rip this band-aid off. Swapping Towns for Ayton doesn’t cut it.
