The Karl-Anthony Towns trade between the New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves is a rarity even in NBA terms. This league is certainly no stranger to surprising blockbuster trades, but surprising blockbuster trades the weekend before training camp begins involving two championship contenders hamstrung by a new collective bargaining agreement designed in part to kill deals like this? Yeah, that's a new one. Both the Knicks and Timberwolves entered Friday with 2024-25 championship ambitions.
They are both leaving Friday with 2024-25 championship ambitions. Yet they've swapped reigning All-Stars and drastically remade their rosters mere days before training camps are set to begin. The closest analogue to this deal historically would probably be the Kyrie Irving-Isaiah Thomas swap of 2017, but even that deal came in August.
Nobody has time to be shocked. The season unofficially begins on Monday. So what are we to make of this thing? What motivated two potential Finals teams to shake up their rosters so drastically? And how did both teams do in the deal? Here are our grades for Friday's shocker.
New York Knicks: B+ The Knicks had two major problems to solve within the next year. The short-term issue was the center position. Isaiah Hartenstein left in free agency.
Mitchell Robinson is injured. Tom Thibodeau teams are incredibly reliant on size. New York was, at some point, going to need to take a swing on a center.
The longer-term issue was Julius Randle's contract. He is a th.