Cities for Randle. One could hardly find a better compromise to address the worst fears of each team’s fan base.

Did the T’wolves just endorse their best team in two decades now that Glen Taylor is back in the ownership saddle? Did the Knicks unnecessarily chase an expensive, shiny item that just happened to be a former client of Leon Rose?

Or…did both teams actually do the right thing here?

Let’s take a look.

First, the details of the trade. The Minnesota Timberwolves will send Karl-Anthony Towns to New York, where we can look forward to a new group of announcers calling him “Anthony-Towns” for half a season before he figures out his name. In return, the Knicks are sending Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a protected 2025 first-round pick from Detroit to Minnesota.

As a side note to the deal, the Knicks will send $8.8 million in salary credit to Charlotte and pay the Hornets with draft picks to make up the salary. Cap nerds will rejoice at the fact that Charlotte appears to be the first team to use its mid-level non-taxpayer exception as a trade exception, a new wrinkle to the 2023 CBA.

At the time of this writing, the exact players and compensation between New York and Charlotte were not entirely clear, but New York could sign and trade DeQuan Jeffries and Charlie Brown Jr. to fill the required $8.8 million gap Close US dollars This is a legal trade. The Knicks have a stockpile of several future second-round picks to incentivize trades.

There may also be a small deal from the Wolves to Charlotte to satisfy NBA trade rules; Since the Wolves’ 15-player roster is one over the maximum after the trade and Minnesota still has $25 million in taxes, it’s possible a player could move to Charlotte.

At first glance, the maxim when it comes to NBA trades is that the team that gets the best player wins in the end. Towns is a year younger than Randle, and most observers would say he’s better too. Additionally, the Knicks had a glaring need for center fielders, and Towns is better positioned to fill that role than Randle.

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Trade Notes: Who won the Karl-Anthony Towns-Julius Randle trade?

On the other hand, this is a league with salary caps, and money counts for more than just the owners’ pockets. Towns is making $49.2 million this season, $53 million next season and has a $61 million player option in 2027-28. Randle, meanwhile, has a player option for $30.9 million in 2025-26; At the end of March, the Wolves could wipe out last year and sign him to a contract extension of up to four years and $181 million, although it’s unlikely they’ll reach quite that much. Whatever his next contract pays him in 2025-26, it won’t be $53 million; indeed DiVincenzo and Randle combined It’s unlikely you’ll earn that much.

The result of this particular fact is that the Wolves will likely finish well below the second frontcourt in the 2025-26 season and their 2033 draft pick will not be frozen. If they rework Rudy Gobert’s contract (he has a player option for $46.6 million in the 2025-26 season; he and the Wolves could sign an extension that makes the money smoother), they could even have the Glen Taylor fantasy realize not to pay taxes at all.

More likely, they’re still over the tax but have enough wiggle room to either re-sign Naz Reid or use their mid-level non-taxpayer exception for a replacement. That probably wouldn’t be the case if Towns stuck to his contract.

The other aspect of this deal is that the gap between Towns and Randle may not be as big as you think. BORD$ values ​​Towns at $41 million and Randle at $37 million next season. While part of that latter rating is due to Randle being more of an innings eater, it’s also because he has more game-winning ball skills than Towns and is less prone to throwing a hook pass into the seventh line. Unless Randle is hampered by a shoulder injury in January, this shouldn’t be a major downgrade for Minnesota.

Randle is neither Towns’ equal as a shooter or rebounder, and the Wolves are already lacking shots. Enter DiVincenzo. He scored three goals last season (283 goals, 40.1 percent accuracy) and has one of the best contracts in the league. A player’s BORD$ value is $29 million, he is making just $11.4 million this year and is under contract through 2027.

This first-round pick is not insignificant either, even if it carries much less weight than these three outstanding players who lead the industry. It’s a top-13 protected pick from Detroit that moves to top-11 protection in 2026 and top-9 protection in 2027 before becoming a second. Especially in 2027, there’s a good chance of being a mid-first round pick, but in 2027 it could end up being a pick only in the 30s.

The important aspect of his choice is future trading flexibility for the Wolves, who no longer had any assets of their own that they could use for trades. But such a pick could result in a mid-sized deal in the 2025 season or, more likely, the 2025 offseason.

So it’s hard for me to be critical of this deal for Minnesota. Randle is arguably a better fit next to Gobert and has a much better contract than Towns, and they got a great sixth man and a tradeable pick in the process. My prediction system projected Minnesota getting three wins from this deal, and the Wolves also gained more future cap flexibility and received a draft pick.

And for the Knicks? I’m worried that this will make their squad too top-heavy and reduce wing depth. New York’s remaining group is now leaning a little too much toward Thibodeau’s fantasy of using just six players all night for all 82 games and hoping they don’t collapse all at once in the playoffs. (Yes, I just made up a word with five consecutive vowels. Heat checks aren’t just for players.)

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Katz: What’s next for the Knicks after trading Karl-Anthony Towns?

Subtracting both DiVincenzo and Randle means Josh Hart is promoted to starter and the perimeter depth is… Miles McBride? There isn’t much else here, although veterans like Landry Shamet and Marcus Morris Sr., who signed training camp contracts, now have a good chance of making the roster. New York looks stronger up front, especially with Mitchell Robinson coming back, and they could potentially trade Robinson for a winger.

Here’s the scary part for New York: This is a win-now trade, and the Knicks forecast in my system didn’t improve after I entered the changes. In fact, it got significantly worse, dropping by 2.5 wins. One can argue that the Knicks’ playoff version would be given a different flavor if it were more reliant on the top six players, but that would depend on Thibodeau not killing them all before April. Additionally, New York has little draft capital left to trade and is just pennies away from the second apron cap. It will likely stay with this roster until next offseason.

Yes, New York will likely restock the roster to make the end game of the trade look a little better than it currently does. This is one of the most creative front offices in the league and has mined the NBA scrapheap quite effectively in the past.

Nonetheless, this could be a trade that turns the “get the best player” maxim on its head. The issue of how to ultimately resolve Towns’ mammoth contract has been an issue that has preoccupied the Wolves’ future almost from the day he signed his contract extension. Somehow, Minnesota’s front office cleverly managed to manage two pieces that really fit and made the cap situation much more bearable.

As for New York? Yes, the Knicks have solved their starting center problem… but in doing so, they’ve created enough other problems that the cure may be worse than the disease.

(Top photo of Julius Randle and Karl-Anthony Towns: Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)