Grade the Trade: Mock Towns trade results in wild haul from Rockets

If you have had it up to your eyeballs with NBA Rumors and NBA Trade scenarios, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But the folks at Bleacher Report are at it again, and this one involves the Minnesota Timberwolves and All-Star power forward Karl-Anthony Towns.

While that comes as no surprise, I am not presenting this new trade scenario blindly. After all, I expect many are already asking: “Is this one any more attractive than the myriad of other trade scenarios that we have heard and discussed before?”

Perhaps, and perhaps not.  But each new mock trade scenario offers some new twist, turn, package, or detail that must be weighed and deliberated separately. And so, I’m simply presenting this latest scenario to you, and letting you be the judge.

The common thread to all mock trade scenarios is based on two common elements: The first is the presumption that the Minnesota Timberwolves trade for former Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert was an utter failure, and the trade is a grasp at straws to rectify the situation as optimally as possible.

Why would Wolves engage now if not before?

But the Minnesota Timberwolves front office has had plenty of opportunities to engage in meaningful trade talks since that trade and has not modified their High Wall strategy so far. So why would the team commit to a trade now?

The second common thread is a belief that the Minnesota Timberwolves cannot afford to keep everyone paid in the 2024-25 NBA season or beyond, and so the team is prepared to trade a player, namely Karl-Anthony Towns, on or before the 2024 NBA Trade Deadline.

Combined, the two common threads have resulted in a host of exchanges between the Minnesota Timberwolves and some other NBA team or teams that have some relatively sketchy value for both sides.  But some scenarios may not be so out of the question. So let’s consider the latest trade proposal from Bleacher Report’s NBA staff after we  place it under the microscope: