Knicks, Nets & Heat Frontrunners

If Minnesota can’t make a deep playoff run next season, it will be time to make some trades, and Karl-Anthony Towns is a player a number of teams have interest in.

Potential suitors for Towns include the Nets, Heat, Knicks, Trailblazers and Pacers according to Heavy Sports’ Sean Deveney.

Reportedly, New York are a team that would make a major push for KAT:

“The interest in making that happen would be mutual, for sure,” an NBA source told Sean Deveney of Heavy Sports. “KAT and the Knicks are intertwined. To some people, it is more a matter of when they go after him, not if.”

Anthony-Towns certainly does have strong ties in NY, as he grew up in New Jersey, was coached by current Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau in Minnesota for the better part of two and a half years and his former agent Leon Rose is now the Knicks president.

Of course, knowing people at the organization isn’t enough. Minnesota hasn’t made it out of the first round since the 2003-04 postseason and if the Knicks continue to rise in stock, it might be worth making a switch.

“You can still sell high on Towns even though it was not a great year for him,” an Eastern Conference executive said. “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.”

Towns will enter the first of a four-year, $225 million deal at the start of the 2024-25 season.

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