As NBA fans, most of us love the 24/7 news cycle that it provides. The Finals just wrapped up on Monday, and the Denver Nuggets will barely have time for a victory parade before the draft happens next Thursday. Every year, with the draft comes a new set of trade rumors and speculation. Trades are almost always made on draft night while teams move up and down the board, angling for the players they want. Or they use the pick they have as part of a package to acquire a veteran player.
The Wolves don’t have a pick in the first round of the draft this year, but that hasn’t stopped them from being a part of the draft week rumor cycle. A fresh speculative article involving Karl-Anthony Towns trade ideas has hit the internet, and created some incredibly misleading headlines once again. The source of these headlines was from a Bleacher Report article written by Eric Pincus titled “Two 3-team Trades to Make James Harden Think Hard About Houston Rockets.”
As you might guess from its title, the article is speculative in nature, and attempts to create some fun trade scenarios that might tempt James Harden to leave a title contender in Philadelphia to join the rebuilding Rockets. At the beginning of the section about Karl-Anthony Towns and the Timberwolves, Pincus notes that the new CBA is not friendly to teams like the Wolves. Minnesota has multiple max salary players and will soon be nearing the “second apron” of the luxury tax, which might as well be a hard cap because of how punitive it is. Then Pincus said the words that lit a fire under aggregators around the internet: “Other competing executives think Karl-Anthony Towns will be long gone ahead of the 2024-25 campaign. Some even believe Minnesota would jump at an opportunity in the next few weeks.”
Literally all this quote reports is that executives on competing teams (i.e. not the Wolves, i.e. executives competing with the Wolves that could have a competitive interest in stirring the pot enough to get KAT to demand a trade), have predicted or guessed that KAT will no longer be in Minnesota after this season. It also reports that some of these executives believe that the Timberwolves would “jump at an opportunity,” implying they would be excited to trade KAT, and predict it will happen in the next few weeks. All NBA executives are incredibly connected in the NBA. In some cases, they likely have inside information about other teams.
However, the article does not report inside information shared by Timberwolves executives or other executives. It reports the predictions and opinions of other executives (again, not on the Wolves) summarized in two brief sentences. It also does not report anything new on the possibility of a KAT trade. We still don’t know whether or not Minnesota is interested in trading Karl, who was untouchable last offseason — even in a trade that would have netted Kevin Durant.
Why am I stating the obvious and belaboring the point? Because as usual, the headlines and articles written based on this quote have been frankly absurd given the material.
- They range from mild misinterpretations or manipulations of factual reporting such as: “Timberwolves’ All-Star on brink of trade – Could Golden State Warriors get involved?” and “Timberwolves could reportedly look to trade Karl-Anthony Towns ‘in the next few weeks’”
- To simply untrue and downright irresponsible clickbait headlines on YouTube like “Wolves Looking to Trade Karl Anthony Towns” and my personal favorite “GREAT NEWS! Timberwolves Star To The Warriors! Is This a Big Trade, Fans? GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS NEWS.”
The final headline was so absurd I almost thought it was made by a parody account like Ballsack Sports. However, upon listening to the video it sounds more like an AI written article read by an AI generated voice that was then put through the voice filter that Timbaland used on Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody” that makes him sound like he’s speaking through a very low quality phone. The video begins with the thought provoking question “Hey guys, are you ready for another hot NBA news?” Truly spectacular content by the account called “Golden State Warriors News” that somehow has almost 6.4 thousand followers while posting strictly fake news.
This is just another friendly reminder of how important media literacy is when searching for information on the internet.
Ultimately, we may truly be the closest we’ve ever been to the Wolves trading KAT. It also may be the first time it’s actually somewhat of a logical move for people other than reactive and (usually) rightfully upset fans. The new CBA really is going to be difficult for the Timberwolves to navigate with the salary cap they are going to have committed to their top four players at the start of next season.
Yes, in a year when the CBA takes effect, or in the event that the team struggles again right away this season, it eventually makes the most sense to trade one of your two veteran max salary centers rather than your rising star wings if you are pressed to get under the “second apron.” The team also has new owners and a new GM. That is historically when unexpected trades get made, as we witnessed with the Gobert trade. It also happened to the Phoenix Suns when their new owner pushed them to trade for Durant.
However, as Wolves fans, we’ve witnessed this news cycle happen too many times before — as recently as three months ago:
- Towns is a good player
- Other teams executives recognize that
- They go on the record expressing that they would have interest in KAT if he became available
- The Timberwolves express no interest in making KAT available
- Then the story dies again because it was always a one way street of expressed interest.
Until we hear tangible reports that Wolves executives (i.e. not other executives) have expressed interest in trading KAT, then the fire creating the smoke is not in Minnesota. More likely it is being blown in by other executives due to their own personal interests.
Local truth seeker Darren Wolfson reported on his podcast that he heard about the Pincus report, and investigated it by asking two of his contacts that are executives on teams that it would make sense for the Wolves to trade with. Per Doogie “these two executives told me so far crickets. They have not had any trade dialogue with the Wolves.” That further strengthens the idea that none of these trade rumors are coming from Minnesota’s side.
Even if the Wolves executives had interest in trading Towns, it would be most beneficial for them to hold their cards close to their chest until shortly before the trade happens, like they did last year before the Gobert trade. It would also make the most sense for them to take the public stance that they want to keep KAT because they don’t need to trade him, and could potentially leverage a better offer from a team that really wants KAT, forcing that team to negotiate against themselves. Sound familiar?
I don’t have that strong of an opinion on whether or not the Wolves should trade KAT. I generally believe that the narrative of him not being a winning player is way overblown. In most of Karl’s career, he’s either been too young to be expected to carry a team to the playoffs on his own, or the team around him has seriously lacked talent. In the three seasons he has had a good team around him, the Wolves made the playoffs. Is this a strange coincidence, or is he just a talented player who needs help to win like everybody else, including LeBron James and Nikola Jokic?
I also don’t think it makes all that much sense to trade an All-NBA level player because a different bad trade you made forced him to change positions before the season started. However, now that the damage has been done, if they truly did get a godfather offer from a team that netted them Scoot Henderson and future picks, or a top 10 pick and a bunch of talented young players who would fit Edwards timeline better, I’m not opposed to the team getting younger on a large scale. It would allow them to further focusing on how to build around their best player.
I’m simply sick of seeing headlines implying or directly saying that KAT is close to being traded, only to do some research, read the quote that the headline is based on, and find out that it doesn’t actually report anything new. This isn’t Pincus’s fault. Rather, it’s the fault of the people who manipulated his words to make misleading headlines out of things he didn’t say. I will care if it gets reported that other executives have talked to Timberwolves executives about KAT trades, not if other executives theorized or postulated or presented an opinion about KAT and what the Wolves will or should do with him. Please save me some time.
