Knicks Must Target Karl-Anthony Towns to Get Over Playoff Hump Amid NBA Trade Rumors

If the 2022-23 NBA season taught New York Knicks fans anything, it's that the team is still a key piece away from being the championship contender they thought it was.

A recent report from Sean Deveney of Heavy.com suggests New York is aware of this and is looking at Minnesota Timberwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns to resolve the issue.

"The interest in making that happen would be mutual, for sure. KAT and the Knicks are intertwined. To some people, it is more a matter of when they go after him, not if," Deveney wrote.

With heightened expectations coming from the strong play of core contributors Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle, it becomes more imperative that New York shows it is doing all it can to strike while the iron is hot.

The Knicks have the draft capital to make a deal happen, too.

With three first-rounders in 2024 and two in 2025 by way of moves involving Detroit, Washington and Milwaukee, plus unprotected picks of their own, there is enough meat on that bone to put together an intriguing package for the Minnesota star.

There would be even more if the Knicks also offered up center Mitchell Robinson in exchange for the Towns.

That sounds like a one-sided proposition given the injuries that limited the 27-year-old to just 29 games this season, but when healthy, he was still a force for a young Timberwolves squad. He had 20.8 points, 8.1 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 49.5-percent from the field in 2022-23.

Robinson was better from the field but had significantly less points per outing with 7.4. How Towns would have fared over the course of an entire season is open to debate, but the sample size suggests he still would have outperformed the Knicks center in that regard.

Robinson had slightly more boards and played 30 more games than the Minnesota player, but there is reason to believe Towns would have played up to his superstar level had he been healthy enough.

And sure, there is reason for hesitation with regards to Towns' health. He has not played every game in a season since 2017-18 and in two of the last four, he has not completed half of the team's slate.

Some of those absences can be attributed to a variety of reasons, but it has been an uneven run for Towns in recent years.

Throw in a postseason performance in 2023 from beyond the three-point line in which Towns was the worst on his team by eight percentage points, and you have reason to query a potential deal to bring him in, especially if it involves mortgaging the future to do so.

But therein lies the reason where the Knicks could benefit.

When Anthony Edwards signs his next contract with Minnesota, likely a supermax deal, the Timberwolves will be the only team in the league with three such players.

They will likely be looking to offload one of those contracts, and with Towns not quite the dominant force he was earlier in his career, now would be the time for the Knicks to make an offer, mostly because of the favor it would be doing the Timberwolves in the long run.

One Eastern Conference executive told Deveney:

"He's signed. He's still young (27). And he's good. But you need to have a tougher team around him, and you want him in a comfort zone. That is why the Knicks are always coming up—he is from Jersey, he has a base there. And personnel-wise, it would be a good mix. Everyone knows the connections there, everyone knows there is an interest."

At least one of those former connections is Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau, who worked with Towns for just over two years in Minnesota.

That the Edison, New Jersey native has friends and family in the New York area and his former agent is the Knicks' team president makes that destination appear even more like fate.

For the Knicks, the potential for Towns to return to form is all the reason they need to make the deal.

Pairing him with Randle or Brunson, Josh Hart or RJ Barrett, would provide the spark they need to get them over the playoff hump and into the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 23 years, especially considering his career 23 PPG record is 16 better than what Robinson is currently providing New York.