NBA Execs Shade Knicks’ Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges Trades in Front Office Poll

Forty executives and coaches combined to pick the New York Knicks sixth on The Athletic’s poll of the NBA’s top 10 front offices.

However, The Athletic noted that New York was “the most divisive front office in the NBA among league executives,” with two quotes citing the trade for Mikal Bridges and the price tag on Karl-Anthony Towns.

“If they hadn’t made the Mikal Bridges trade, they would be on here,” a team executive told The Athletic. The executive added: “I didn’t think that was the all-in move. They paid the price of what I thought would have been a better player.”

Regarding Towns, one assistant general manager said: “I would not be in the Karl Towns business for $55 million a year.”

The Knicks traded four unprotected first-round picks (2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031), an unprotected pick swap in 2028, a top-four protected 2025 first-round pick (via the Milwaukee Bucks), a 2025 second-round pick, Bojan Bogdanovic, Mamadi Diakite and Shake Milton to the Brooklyn Nets for Bridges, Keita Bates-Diop, a 2026 second-round pick and the draft rights to Juan Pablo Vaulet.

So that’s obviously a massive haul for one player. The 28-year-old Bridges is certainly a good one, averaging 16.9 points on 47.9 percent shooting for a 14-9 Knicks team sitting third in the Eastern Conference.

It’s clear that one front office executive doesn’t believe that Bridges is a good enough player to merit the massive haul that the Knicks gave the Nets. However, it’s the one the Knicks clearly felt they needed to construct in order to land Bridges, perhaps seen as a missing piece to complete a championship-hopeful squad.

Towns came over from the Minnesota Timberwolves in a deal that notably sent Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo the other way. He has $159.4 million due to him from 2024-2027 with a $61 million player option as well.

That aforementioned assistant GM doesn’t think enough of Towns to have him on his roster for that price tag, but the Knicks certainly do and have greatly benefitted from it thus far. Entering Thursday, Towns is averaging 25.1 points and 13.3 rebounds per game.

New York owns the most efficient offense in the NBA thanks in part to these two, although its defense has struggled (18th). Still, the team finds itself in the Eastern Conference mix thus far in hopes of making the franchise’s first NBA Finals since 1999 and winning the first championship since 1973.