One Timberwolves trade Connelly won’t make: KAT for Sixers Harris

I guessed that NBA Rumors would begin to heat up after the Minnesota Timberwolves successfully poached ex-Nuggets Tim Connelly to take on the vacant President of Basketball Operations. But it’s just gone off the rails on the crazy train, folks.

What I’m referring to is the latest Sportsnaut.com article published by Vincent Frank, where he creates three wild scenarios for the Philadelphia 76ers to offload a rather pricey Forward Tobias Harris. While that sort of fodder is not unusual as wild imaginations work feverishly to create those whimsical “it works in the ESPN NBA Trade Machine” scenarios, the premise that the Minnesota Timberwolves are in the market for Tobias Harris is a complete stretch of the imagination.

The assertion that the Minnesota Timberwolves would include star center Karl-Anthony Towns in any trade is just utter nonsense.

Okay, so what does this trade look like?  See for yourself:

There are multiple problems with this trade scenario, but let’s go after the basics first. For starters, the Timberwolves have zero reasons to pursue any trade that include Karl-Anthony Towns. None. Zilch. Nada. So even if the trade passes the math algorithms of the ESPN NBA Trade Machine, there is no logical reason why Minnesota would even answer the phone.

But let’s assume that the Minnesota Timberwolves do answer the phone out of politeness. Let’s look at what this trade does to the two teams. The Timberwolves jettison their front-court help and load up on back-court players. Huh? It’s no better for the Philadelphia 76ers, who ship off a hefty number of backcourt players, only to load up on a center, a position already solidly covered by their own star, Joel Embiid.

While it would be intriguing to line up Harris next to KAT, that’s as far as the intrigue goes.

Here is another trade that works via the ESPN NBA Trade Machine. It goes like this:

While this trade would be far more favorable for the Timberwolves, I would not expect that trade scenario to even get past the first phone call.

There are many questions running around cyberspace right now wondering what new Timberwolves president Tim Connelly might do to improve the team. But one thing he won’t do? You can pretty much guarantee that he will not be trading C Karl-Anthony Towns for 76ers PF Tobias Harris.