The Minnesota Timberwolves are hurtling toward a brick wall. That wall has been built up piece by piece: handing veteran PF/C Karl-Anthony Towns a supermax extension, trading everything that wasn’t nailed down for C Rudy Gobert (but not SF Jaden McDaniels!), the new CBA putting punitive penalties in place for high-spending teams, and most recently the extension for Naz Reid. Soon bricks will be added when Anthony Edwards and McDaniels agree to contract extensions.
Add it all up, and you have a brick wall: the Timberwolves are in line to pay their centers over $90 million next season, and a whopping $110 million in 2024-25 when Towns’ supermax extension kicks in. That’s an unfathomable amount of money for one position, let alone the least-versatile position in the league.
The Timberwolves have to trade their All-Star center
To try and avoid their fate, the Timberwolves need to trade either Rudy Gobert or Karl-Anthony Towns. Given how much they gave up for Gobert and Towns’ age and skillset, it likely makes the most sense for the Wolves to move Towns.
Yet an offense-first center who doesn’t protect the rim at a high level is a difficult fit on most winning teams. For a team to value Towns enough to trade for him, they need rim protection from a non-center; think Aaron Gordon and Nikola Jokic on the Denver Nuggets.
One team, in particular, comes to mind when considering elite rim protection from the power forward position. Jaren Jackson Jr. of the Memphis Grizzlies has the defensive ability to pair well with Towns. Could the Grizzlies put together a suitable package for the smooth-shooting big man?
Let’s build a potential deal and see how it looks.
Laying out the Towns trade
The Memphis Grizzlies aren’t going to break up their core to add Karl-Anthony Towns, and nor should they. He hasn’t demonstrated that he can win at a high enough level for a good team to change everything they are doing to rely on Towns instead.
They do have enough matching salary to facilitate a deal, however, and with a first-round pick added on top may result in the best offer the Wolves will find on the market given how expensive Towns is about to become. That deal would look something like this:
The Grizzlies giving up Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke will be painful, as both players have been key for the Grizzlies over the past two seasons (Clarke for more than that) but they have to match Towns’ salary somehow. Luke Kennard is a valuable shooter they acquired last season, but adding Towns’ shooting helps to mitigate that loss.
Offensively, the Grizzlies would be downright dangerous. A starting lineup of Ja Morant, Marcus Smart, Desmond Bane, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Karl-Anthony Towns would be lethal, with high-end floor-spacing from the frontcourt to balance out the middling shooting from the backcourt. Smart, Bane, and JJJ are all great-to-elite defensively, balancing the lineup out.
The Grizzlies might be the team best equipped to handle Towns’ weaknesses and benefit most from his strengths. Yet even if this deal works for Memphis, is it enough for the Wolves to move Towns?
Would the Wolves say yes?
Karl-Anthony Towns has been a part of the Minnesota Timberwolves for eight seasons, averaging over 20 points per game in every season but his rookie year, when he won Rookie of the Year. He is a three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA winner. At 6’11” he has shot 39.5 percent from 3-point range on strong volume, making him a truly unique player even in the modern NBA.
Trading Towns will be difficult, let alone a trade where the Wolves don’t get back premium draft capital or a young prospect with star-level upside. A deal like the one offered by Memphis might be viewed as a non-starter for Tim Connelly and the front office.
It shouldn’t be. Towns’ value is not at its highest, and it’s likely to only go down the longer he is shoehorned next to Rudy Gobert. The Wolves made a bet and it lost; they need to get out before the consequences get even worse. Few teams in the league are likely to even view Towns as positive value when you factor in his contract and his fit on their teams.
This deal breaks Towns’ salary into three pieces, players the Wolves can either keep for their own rotation or move on to another team much more easily. Luke Kennard can be a replacement for the Malik Beasley role as a movement shooter off the bench, and Brandon Clarke can be the fourth big behind Gobert, Naz Reid, and Kyle Anderson. Adams, they can move to another team in need of a center who gobbles rebounds.
This isn’t a slam dunk of a deal, and it’s possible that they could convince another team to bid higher. Would the New York Knicks beat this deal? Could the Atlanta Hawks talk themselves into something crazy? Would the Portland Trail Blazers make an offer? In the end, however, this deal saves them from the brick wall and lets them build a new group around Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels. There are worse outcomes out there.
Grade: B