Karl-Anthony Towns is less than a week from beginning his ninth NBA season, all with the Minnesota Timberwolves. If you mute all the outside noise and listen only to the words coming straight from KAT’s mouth, you’d get a blissful picture of a No. 1 draft pick growing up and becoming a man in the frozen north. Along the way, he’s experienced wins and losses, and tragedies and triumphs. Everything he’s said in nearly a decade in Minnesota has been about how happy and content he is. He emphatically says he wants to stay and win the first championship in franchise history. Towns loves his teammates, respects his coaches and has no issues with the front office. He has never made any attempt to signal that he’s unhappy in his role or would ever ask to be traded.
Fade the crowd noise back in and you’d believe that we’re in the midst of the fifth year of a James Harden-level fiasco. They’d say Towns is a chronically disgruntled star who will do anything to get out of his current situation. Trade rumors have run rampant every offseason since he signed his rookie max extension. People have frequently brought up KAT’s name as the first star who will change teams.
Heading into this season, there are sources saying that the New York Knicks are “monitoring” KAT’s situation in Minnesota. The Knicks have been the team mentioned most often. They’ve purportedly been lurking in the shadows the last five years waiting for Towns to make his trade demand as they are with almost every star player. For the simple-minded, KAT to the Knicks makes all the sense in the world. Towns returning home to save the Knicks is a good story, and they have stabilized their franchise since being a laughing stock not long ago. But is it really a better environment than what the Timberwolves have going on?
That leads to the main issue with the constant trade rumors. Did we forget that the Timberwolves are kind of good now? KAT and the Timberwolves are coming off back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in nearly 20 years and both were respectable first-round exits. We are currently living through the second-best era in Timberwolves history, and Karl-Anthony Towns is a building block of this resurgence. Why would a playoff team that is trying to contend sooner rather than later trade away one of their best players in franchise history to a coastal elite team for 60 cents on the dollar?
I understand the premise. Most outsiders are assuming this Wolves season is going to go poorly. Towns will get frustrated and finally do the thing people have been predicting since the Wolves won the lottery in 2015 and ask (demand) to be traded. The prophecy will finally be fulfilled. Whether it’s a bad fit between Towns and Rudy Gobert, Anthony Edwards doesn’t become prime Kobe Bryant age 22, injuries, or general franchise malfunction, the general thinking seems to be that the Wolves will blow up like usual and start the fire sale.
Well, I’m here to say get the hell out of here with your rumblings, monitoring of situations, and rumor-mongering. The only situation to monitor in Minnesota is if the Timberwolves can win a playoff series for the first time in 20 years. I understand these rumors started popping up when Towns was a rising star stuck on a team in first gear winning 19 and 23 games.
Towns has mourned Flip Saunders and his mother’s death. He endured being teammates with emo Jimmy Butler, Gersson Rosas’ ousting, and a few serious injuries. Most people would probably want to start fresh if they had to deal with half of those issues. But Towns remained loyal through it all and has been handsomely rewarded with a true alpha in Edwards, the best non-Tom Thibodeau coach he’s ever had, and the main architect of the Denver Nuggets championship running the show.
It’s important to note that Towns’ four-year supermax extension doesn’t even kick in until next season, giving him four more years under team control with a player option for $61 million in 2027. He’ll become an unrestricted free agent in 2028 when he’s 32 years old. Stars are gaining increasingly more leverage every year, but it’s hard to imagine Towns having much power to force anything until 2026ish. Obviously, the team could choose to blow up the roster and trade KAT without a request made by the three-time All-Star. But finding the right package of players that will help Anthony Edwards win more than KAT will be hard to come by.
It’s a pivotal season in Timberwolves history, and a lot can happen between now and June. But one of the least likely outcomes will be KAT’s full heel turn, no matter how closely teams are monitoring the situation.
