Knicks Used CBA ‘Loophole’ to Execute Karl-Anthony Towns Trade

The NBA’s most seismic trade came as the clock struck midnight, with the New York Knicks executing a massive trade for Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns right before everybody gathered for training camp ahead of the 2024-25 season.

The unfolding of the trade was a bit odd, though. First reports of the blockbuster came on Sept. 27, but the transaction was not actually finalized until Oct. 2.

This is because, while the primary players involved in the trade were agreed upon from the outset, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement makes big deals like this tricky. The Knicks and Wolves both had to get multiple additional pieces into place in order to legally execute the transaction. In the process, the Knicks became the first team to discover a loophole in this complicated CBA.

Per The Athletic‘s Fred Katz, the Knicks were not permitted to aggregate multiple minimum salaries as a team over the first “apron” of the tax. To get around this, the front office paid DaQuan Jeffries, Charlie Brown Jr. and Darius Washington exactly one dollar more than the minimum so they could legally add all the salaries together and complete the trade.

Some nifty work from team president Leon Rose and the rest of the Knicks’ management.