Basketball
Karl-Anthony Towns: ‘Thought I Was Going to Retire’ with T-Wolves Before Knicks Trade
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Karl-Anthony Towns says he believed he was going to finish out his NBA career with the Minnesota Timberwolves up until three weeks ago, when Timberwolves president Tim Connelly informed him he was being traded to the New York Knicks.
“I thought I was gonna retire there, I thought it was gonna be the place I called home for my whole career and then after,” Towns told Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart on the Roommates Show podcast (10:00 mark of the video below.) “My former employer did not agree with that ideology I had.
“It is what it is. I’m here now, with my two guys here, and hoping that we can do something special for the city.”
The Timberwolves traded Towns to the Knicks in early October as part of a three-team deal that brought Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to Minneapolis.
Towns told Brunson and Hart that Connelly came to his house to inform him about the trade on Sept. 27.
The new Knicks big man seemingly reacted to the trade on X about half an hour before NBA insider Shams Charania broke the news.
“I just know how the world works, and I was as stunned as everybody,” Towns said when asked about the post on the podcast. “I really just put ‘dot, dot, dot’ because I couldn’t come up with words to try to be the one to break my own news, because I already knew it was gonna get leaked.”
Towns was selected by the Timberwolves with the No. 1 pick of the 2015 draft. He went on to earn the Rookie of the Year award, then put up 20 points and 10 rebounds per game in each of his next five seasons.
The big man signed a four-year, $224 million super max extension with the Timberwolves in July 2022.
“My dream was always to try to retire here and live every single day of my NBA career as a Wolf… I feel very good with the possibility of that happening,” Towns said after inking the extension in 2022, per Jace Frederick of the Pioneer Press.
But the new deal hadn’t even kicked in yet before the surprise blockbuster deal sent Towns to the Knicks.
Towns will now cost $49 million against the cap for his first season in New York, a number that is set to balloon over the next few seasons until reaching more than $61 million with a 2027-28 player option.
Those cap numbers may have encouraged the Wolves to pivot from building around Towns to using Randle and his $33 million cap hit as their go-to big man instead. Meanwhile, thanks in part to the team-friendly deal signed by Brunson, the Knicks were able to take on Towns’ massive contract in order to bolster their hopes of entering the 2024-25 season as a potential title contender.
Towns is set to make his regular-season Knicks debut on Tuesday with a road game against the defending champion Boston Celtics.
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