KARL'S TOWN

The New York Knicks traded for the controversial Karl-Anthony Towns, a move that signifies a greater ambition. Did they give up too much, though?

Embarrassing screams populated the Greenpoint beer bar as the texted messages flowed in on the phone in rapid succession. And, the music suddenly stopped, while my booming voice reacted to the buzzes I was receiving on my cellular device. Friday night, just a week before training camp for the upcoming NBA season, is not the night you expect to hear that Julius Randle, a player expected to be of great significance for the Knicks this season, had been traded for Minnesota Timberwolves star, Karl-Anthony Towns. Randle, a southpaw with an unique set of skills —  a rapturous mid-range jumper, a punishing and physical style of play that features swinging elbows, majestic offensive rebounds with pump fakes so he can get defenders in the air, and underrated passing that is whipped with one hand — is headed to Minnesota, just after having a strong last season before his shoulder got dislocated in February. This trade is seemingly shocking, although Shams Charania reported on Pat McAfee’s ESPN show that the Knicks have been trying to do this since June, particularly on NBA Draft night. They had offered the Wolves a combination of Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson and that kept getting declined. Until, finally, on Friday night they pivoted and included fan favorite Donte DiVincenzo in the offer. At last, the Wolves’s brass relented. The move comes on the heels of a regular season where the Knicks brass is expecting the team to compete for a championship.

Let’s start here: The New York Knicks got more top heavy, in a conference where the top is immensely difficult to deal with. With a duo and a core of Brunson-Towns-Bridges-Anunoby, the Knicks starting five is built to compete — especially defensively — with any team in the East. Towns is a supreme offensive player, the kind of star whose big scoring output will be made in bunches, while being ingrained in the offense. He’s had some huge games: a 62 point game against Memphis last season, a 60 point game in 2022 against San Antonio, and a 56 point game against the Knicks in 2017. He sports a height of seven feet, with a lean-like size, as if he could fit an Oompa Loompa in his entire body. The jump shot is dreamy: performed at a standstill with a fluid, uncomplicated motion. Perhaps the most unique thing about Towns is how he makes scoring look like a brilliantly simplistic endeavor. At 39.8% his three point percentage, is close to best in history for a man at his size. His numbers describe a future hall of famer as long as the injury bug does not perculate throughout his sometimes brittle bones. Although fans and critics alike have complained endlessly about his defensive presence in the paint, Towns can snatch rebounds down at a high clip. Where Randle is a methodical and slower talent, Towns plays with more speed and agility. Where Randle would struggle to be engaged defensively — adding to the already major groans that fans had with his attitude — Towns is available on that end. He might sometimes struggle with his fouls and his rim protection skills, but he is aiming to be successful at the end, using his long arms to his advantage despite the Timberwolves trading for Rudy Gobert to give him help in that area. His offensive versatility is godly in a way that the Knicks have not seen since their existence. The Knicks historically have teams that are much too blue-collar, forcing them to play a style that encourages briusing regular season victories, but postseason success has been fleeting like a weekend fling. Ever since the deal was announced on everyone’s smart phones, I have been dreaming daily about the pick and pop plays that Brunson and Towns can run together, or the sets that Tom Thibodeau can run to put Towns on the move while Anunoby or Bridges cut to the basket. Towns, a solid passer, will be allowed an offensive freedom that will help his counting statistics. The Knicks were a team that relied on depth last season — quite frankly, the past couple of seasons, Leon Rose and company did a good job of making sure the Knicks had multiple wing bodies that they could throw at a team — and that has been depleted, but one thing is for the sure: the best player in this deal went to the New York Knicks. 

The problems that Karl-Anthony Towns have had in Minnesota are infamous, just as famous as the amount of great games that he has had, is his capacity to annoy and inspire the most masculine men to finger wag at his routinely colorful personality. He’s zeisty; his voice changes depending on the mood that he is in; he’s never not smiling even when ain’t anything funny; he’s goofy, prompting people to wonder whether he is soft. Although he has had good playoff games, he has not yet had a transcendent one. Towns is someone who wants basketball to constantly be exuberant, and when the fun is not materializing, he can have a puppy-dog face. “He wants everybody to get along”, said The Athletic’s Jon Krawcynski, on a podcast. (On the same podcast, Krawcynski said that Towns has matured, and that the relationship with Thibodeau shouldn’t be a problem). He is a big man, but a sensitive man, and past teammates such as Jimmy Butler took advantage of that, laughing in the face and bullying Towns, to the point where the Timberwolves realized they had to trade Butler in order for Towns’s confidence to not be completely shot. With Butler, Towns saw someone who he did not approve of: a swaggering, country bully who used the boulder-sized chip on his shoulder to put down others that he thought didn’t earn the adoration they were receiving. In Towns, Butler saw a twinkle in a large eye that needed to be much more dead than it was, a bitch that he could not abide by. (On an infamous day on NBA Twitter, Adrian Wojanorwski tweeted that Butler had publicly challenged Towns in practice, calling him and teammate Andrew Wiggins soft, hectoring a distraught Towns, who eventual lost a scrimmage against Butler and the third string team). Where players have become politicians, it is shocking to see Towns be affected by any strife happening in the locker room. He feels things — not only is his game cerebral, but he is, as well. When his mother tragically passed away from the COVID-19 virus, Towns was immensely affected by her death. He didn’t use it as inspiration for basketball either like he was Brett Favre after his father died the night before Monday Night Football; Towns was devastated, and he admitted it, as such. It was startlingly honest and devoid of all cliche. It was the hardest year of his life. To see him is to not see a baby but to see someone who feels, an uncommon aspect of basketball in the post-Jordan and to a lesser extent, post-Kobe era, where elite basketball players have to be killers who stalk opponents, looking for their weaknesses. Towns uses his skill to be great, leaving all of those macho characteristics in the rearview. 

Who knows if Karl-Anthony Towns is truly soft? It’s a hard characteristic to calculate. There aren't any statistics that show or explain the vigor in someone’s heart; the need to win is a phrase used to sell you DVD’s and YouTube ads. Perhaps there’s something to be said for emotional dominance, a certain intesnity that flows in the air when somebody walks into a room, a trait that Jimmy Butler does have. Towns, for all we have read and seen from him, doesn’t change the air of a place the moment he walks into it like Butler does. However, luckily for Towns, The New York Knicks are a wonder. They’ve built a team that can shoot, score, with versatility — all they were missing was a true second player. Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the team is how they have re-packaged the toughness and New York aesthetics of the 1990’s Knicks, into a more calculated, political, and family-friendly approach. Brunson is a barking dog but he’s a dog who goes to Wawa; Josh Hart grabs rebounds but he won’t be the subject of any rap songs. Towns, a Tri-State area native, will seemingly fit into this group of Catholic school boys, and won’t have to contend with personalities like Butler. (It should be said that Anthony Edwards has a strong personality as well, but Towns and Edwards worked well together, with Edwards constantly encouraging him). 

The trade is shocking for Knicks fans, such as myself, that liked Randle as a player, and were eternally grateful for his contributions to the changing culture in the Knicks organization. The accomplishments are notable: he made two All-NBA teams in four years, and it would have been a third if not for the shoulder injury caused by the terrorist organization known as the Miami Heat. (If you were to put the IDF and the Miami Heat in the same room together, I think they would get along). It’s genuinely sad to see Randle go — not only did him and his family become part of the city and its overall comeback after COVID but he felt like a true New Yorker hooper in his skill level with his intense approach to the game — and this move is a stunner. I would have liked them to give it a go with Randle and Donte here, at least for a month, so we could truly see if the month of January 2024 was a fluke or the beginnings of a basketball nirvana. Randle was unorthodox, but he was at his best in that month, pushing the ball in space, and beating opponents down the court with a fury. Against all odds — Knicks fans like myself were screaming at the fact that they failed to get Kevin Durant in the offseason where they originally got Randle — #30 was a transformative player in Knicks history, beyond his gaudy statistics and bruising games. The COVID shortened year, Thibodeau’s first, in 2020-2021 was a year where the Knicks were unexpectedly solid. Thibs rode a hungry Randle, who got in the gym as soon as we were allowed outside. That year felt so whimsical: a second year RJ Barrett before fans realized the fit in New York was going to be wonky, a bad Elfrid Payton, a rookie in Immanuel Quickely, and journeymen like Reggie Bullock and Nerlens Noel, surprising fans with their isolated skill sets. Randle was the constant that season: he used the lack of crowds to his advantage, and shot over 40 percent from three, while commanding all attention from the opposition. Thibodeau wasn’t sold on Randle prior to the season; but, because of the work ethic in the workout sessions previous to training camp, he became a favorite of Thibodeau’s. (If you’re in the gym with Thibs, he acknowledges that you are a kindred spirit). The Wolves are getting a stud in Randle. Some of his postseason struggles are because he doesn’t quite have the extra gear that Towns and Brunson have, but as a regular season player, he is a dynamic southpaw that will work alongside Anthony Edwards with similar intensity and passion that Edwards has. The Wolves made this move for money; because of CJ McCollum and his ill-advised crusade against the Warriors, teams can no longer afford a lot of their talent without being penalized with the luxury tax. However, they got Randle in this move. They will be a playoff team, and if his shoulder is truly one hundred percent, then he will be successful this season. Nobody does a comeback story like Randle does one. 

Those who didn’t understand Randle when he was a Knick because of his fiery and sensitive personality were often mistaken. (Remember when he gave the crowd a thumbs down? That year was a struggle for Randle, who was putting too much pressure on himself). The insurgence of Brunson, Hart, Donté, and now Bridges, led people to slightly underrate Randle, as if the “Nova Knicks” became the only heartbeat of the team. There’s many reasons for that — things I outline here — but Randle was seen, two days before the trade went down, at a school in The Bronx, cutting the introduction rope for a new court that is to be named after Earl Monroe. Randle was the Knicks’s representative. To me, he was the last star on the team that represented the citizens of New York that don’t have a voice. Brunson, in comparison, feels like the son of a politician. I’ll miss Randle, and will always root for him, despite the fact that Towns’s effortlessness on offense far outweighs Randle’s aggressive style of play. Whatever the cost of Towns — we’ll get to Donté in a second — the Knicks made a move to maximize their potential. Their bench is less depleted, but they now have a one-two punch that is greater than the previous one-two punch. Randle embraced the Knicks with no restraint in his body, though, and all the talent on the planet can’t take away from what he accomplished here. 

However, one might say that who Knicks fans, and the team itself, will miss the most is Donte DiVincenzo. Donte took on folklore status, stripping it away from the pale hands of Taylor Swift. While I think that DiVincenzo benefitted from a large amount of minutes, or the trade of RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, he was a legit star for the Knicks in the postseason, taking J.R. Smith’s place in Knicks land as the “king of the hot hand.” Donté was the gunner in a Sergio Leone movie: quick to pull the trigger from anywhere, after any set. Sometimes, it was done after receving the ball on the wing, after the Hartenstein screen to get him open; other times, it was done from rebounds and Brunson dribble drives. He truly fired three point shots up: it was fun to watch him be ambitious from behind the arc, a Thibodeau team was relying on a progressive form of offense only rivaled to the 2012-2013 Knicks. He’s an underrated aesthetic as an athlete too; perhaps the most unique thing about Donte is how he renders himself an interesting figure by being the fierce and laconic white boy that is invited to the hip-hop parties. (White people in pop culture are no longer cool. Whiteness has embraced a certain dorkiness, a corniness that I cannot abide by. Donté is like if Jack Harlow had any ideas beyond “I want to be Drake.”). Donté’s game leaped throughout the season as he got more comfortable playing alongside Brunson and OG Anunoby. The Knicks seem to be betting on Bridges taking Donte’s place, and adding wing defense on top of it, and I am not yet convinced of Bridges’s offensive skill set, or his ability to raise his game as Donte did in the postseason. (It does not hurt that Bridges has one of the ugliest looking jump shots I have ever seen. He might be better than Donte, but I won’t enjoy watching him as much). At one point, Hart and Donte were going to come off the bench — a bench duo that would have been boisterous. Hart excels at defense and rebounding wherever you put him, but he’s also a spotty scorer. Donte, however, can score in ways that Hart can’t, and it allows Thibodeau not to overuse Hart, as he is prone to do because of Hart’s defensive versatility. I imagine this move is the one that will keep Leon Rose up at night.

The screams that were belted at that Greenpoint bar where I heard the news were partly because of DiVincenzo. This Knicks move is a dangerous one — they’ve given up depth, continuity, and wing shooting for Karl-Anthony Towns’s offensive potential. It presents itself as a move for the future, though. Towns, if you can imagine the prowess as an offensive player growing more, will upwardly project this team to greater heights in the way that Pau Gasol helped do for the Lakers. Part of me wonders if a championship team would have included Donte DiVincenzo on it, shooting jumpers off of screens late in games when the opposition was lacking behind in spark. Other people have wondered about Towns’s heart and how that will manifest itself in close games, understandable for somebody who has the tendency to drift into and out of some games. I would hate to see what happens in this city if Towns gets off to a curious and dubious start in the orange and blue. Will Towns be confident enough to take over games that the Knicks desperately need? Is Bridges an all-star level player or he is a jack of all trades sixth man? Will OG stay healthy? (Another issue with this trade is how it might force Anunoby to take a more instinctive approach on offense, something his collaborative heart might not allow him to do). Marking all of this down, Leon Rose has schemed a kind of offensive dream for Thibodeau, who has never had talent this dynamic and esoteric. It is now time for the Knicks to bank this trade, and turn it into more success for the franchise. It’s a gamble; but, a gamble that is born out of a significant desire to achieve something greater.