It finally happened. After years of speculation that Karl-Anthony Towns would force his way out of Minnesota, the Minnesota Timberwolves finally forced KAT out of Minnesota by trading him to the New York Knicks last week for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, Keita Bates-Diop, and future, protected draft capital from the Detroit Pistons.
It’s difficult to process for die-hard Wolves fans who have seen Towns grow from a teenager from New Jersey into a man ingrained in the Minnesota community. Towns is the second-best player in Timberwolves history, with Anthony Edwards quickly nipping at his heels. Fans, pundits, executives, and players across the league were always going to scrutinize any trade involving the four-time All-Star.
It’s an interesting dichotomy. Many Wolves fans are distraught that the trade is taking away one of their favorite players and all-time “one of us” guys in Minnesota sports history before he could do what he promised and take the Timberwolves all the way. And the national media and players who have spent the last nine years calling KAT soft, weird, and unable to lead a winning team. It takes a bizarre “blockbuster” trade for these two distinct groups to agree on anything, but Towns has always been a divisive star player.
With a week to dissect this trade from all sides and finally see the players for the first time in their new uniforms, the Wolves fans may agree that the Knicks won the trade. Still, we vastly underrate this new-look Timberwolves team. ESPN released its annual NBA preseason NBA team win total projections for the 2024-25 season earlier this week. The Wolves won 56 games last season, finished third in the West, and made the Western Conference Finals for the first time in 20 years. Still, the worldwide leader projects the Timberwolves to win 42.7 games this season and finish eighth in the loaded Western Conference.
ESPN bases its projections on Kevin Pelton’s SCHOENE model, which has never been reliable. However, a 13-win drop from last season in the wake of the KAT trade is criminally underrating one of the deepest teams in the NBA.
Towns was the best player in the trade and is heading to a Knicks team with championship aspirations. He’s a four-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA third-team selection, and second to Kevin Garnett in most of the franchise’s statistical categories. The Ringer ranked KAT as the 32nd best player in the NBA postseason and 20th in ESPN’s preseason player rankings ahead of last season.
His career averages of 22.9 points and 10.8 rebounds per game on 39.8 percent from three are hall-of-fame-level raw numbers that will have Knicks fans tuned into one-and-a-half Wolves games over the last nine years dreaming of Patrick Ewing and Willis Reed. I’m not here to argue that Towns isn’t a great player and won’t be missed by the franchise he helped lead to its first playoff series win since 2004. However, I think the basketball world treats Julius Randle like a role player.
My brother said it best when he texted me this morning: “They’re acting like the Wolves got Rui Hachimura.” I’m not trying to degrade Hachimura, who might be the third-best player on a wildly overrated Los Angeles Lakers squad. I’m reminding everyone that Julius Randle is a bad man.
Randle is a two-time All-NBAer, with one third-team and one second-team selection during his ten-year career. He won Most Improved Player of the 2020-21 NBA season when he led the Knicks to their first playoff appearance since 2013, averaging 24.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, and six assists per game. However, Randle is a career 33.3 percent three-point shooter. He also regresses in the playoffs and is coming off a shoulder injury that cost him the last 36 games of the season and the entire playoffs last year.
Still, let’s not dabble in revisionist history and act like Karl-Anthony Towns had a perfect record in Minnesota.
Towns was known as much for his back-breaking offensive fouls, bonehead turnovers, and stray voltage — especially in the playoffs — as he was for being a great three-point shooter. KAT’s lack of offensive creation and ice-cold shooting is a major reason the Wolves crashed out in the Western Conference Finals in five games against the Dallas Mavericks.
Randle won’t light it up from three, but he’ll relieve Edwards as the only Wolves player who can create offense. Randle was ranked 45th in both ESPN’s preseason player rankings last year and The Ringer’s postseason rankings. Wolves fans would have every reason to panic if it were a one-for-one deal. Thankfully, there’s another beautiful basketball player that keeps Minnesota’s roster clearly in the championship contender category.
Donte DiVincenzo is a certified baller and the only player on the Timberwolves roster with championship experience. He’ll supplement the loss of KAT’s shooting and provide another pair of steady hands in the backcourt to spell Mike Conley and help prepare Rob Dillingham for the spotlight. The Wolves now employ two top-five candidates for Sixth Man of The Year: DiVincenzo and Naz Reid. Those two starting-level players will sit behind a still elite starting lineup of Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Julius Randle, and Rudy Gobert. Add in Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Dillingham, Terrence Shannon Jr., and whatever Joe Ingles has left, and the Wolves are still in the hunt for the franchise’s first championship.
It’s sad to see KAT leave as a man in the community who embraced him and as one of the best basketball players in the league. But Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo can keep the Wolves in the mix for the top seed in the West and a championship. The Minnesota Timberwolves have once again become underrated.