Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo did a two-part reaction to the playoffs on Monday, and Karl-Anthony Towns’ name surprisingly came up. After breaking down the playoff games and looking at the Conference Finals, they discussed potential off-season moves.
It started with the players Simmons and Russillo could be involved in blockbuster trades.
“Did you do all your ring-around-the-rosie guys?” Simmons asked Russillo.
“I did,” Russillo confirmed.
“How many guys did you have?” Simmons inquired before explaining the exercise.
“So, I asked Russillo before the pod: Ayton, Jordan Poole, there’s all these dudes that are kinda around the same price range who seem like they might be available, and is there like an eight-team trade potential where just everybody kinda moves teams like ring-around-the-rosie?
“So, who are your guys?”
“Julius Randle,” Russillo responded. “John Collins, who’s been, I mean, they’ve already given him a f—g jacket.”
“When you go on the trade machine, his picture should just be on the trade machine,” joked Simmons.
“It starts with him and the Atlanta Hawks, no alphabetically, they just go, ‘Okay, get to work,’” Russillo said, laughing.
“Here he is, click on Collins,” Simmons said in jest.
“That was really good,” Russillo complimented Simmons.
“Thanks!” Simmons replied.
“I would put –” Russillo started before Simmons cut him off.
“Jordan Poole,” Simmons suggested.
“Jordan Poole is in there,” Russillo confirmed.
“Ayton?” suggested Simmons.
“Well, Ayton’s in there,” Russillo offered, “I thought we already covered that.
“I don’t think Karl-Anthony Towns is in this group. I don’t.”
“Agree,” said Simmons.
“I think Minnesota is gonna try to figure it out with this group, and they’ll reassess,” Russillo continued. “I’ll be shocked if they didn’t come back and look pretty similar and go, ‘Let’s see now, we got a year under our belts. It looks like Edwards has taken that step. Towns is more likely to be healthy this year than missing all the time he did last year. Let’s see what it looks like with the full group with the full season.”
“I agree,” said Simmons.
“I think Towns gets mentioned a lot,” Russillo offered, “but I don’t think he should be mentioned in this because that would be putting him in a more dramatic category than he actually is.”
Russillo and Simmons are right, the Timberwolves kind of have to run it back. Furthermore, it doesn’t make much sense to trade Towns for cents on the dollar. He was missing for most of the year last season, and Minnesota already went all-in on Gobert. As much as it would pain some fans, it makes sense to make one more go of it, then figure out what’s next.
The Wolves can’t waste Anthony Edwards’ early 20s on teams that don’t win, even if they’re flawed because of a blockbuster trade that brought minimal returns last season.
