The Friday night blockbuster trade that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks came as a shock to seemingly everyone in the NBA world. The deal saw the Minnesota Timberwolves deal Towns to the Eastern Conference contender in exchange for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick.
Minnesota will now head into the 2024-25 season with a new starting lineup, and a lot of questions to answer. Towns had been the one certainty on a constantly-changing roster for the last nine seasons, and now Chris Finch and his staff will have a lot of figuring to do in order to make this team work as a unit.
In the meantime, the additions of Randle and DiVincenzo will do wonders for the Timberwolves' depth. There is still much work to be done, but Minnesota looks to still be among the top contenders in the Western Conference.
Here is what Minnesota's depth chart looks like as of right now.
Projected Timberwolves depth chart for the 2024-25 season:
- Point guard: Mike Conley, Rob Dillingham, Daishen Nix
- Shooting guard: Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo, Jaylen Clark
- Small forward: Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Joe Ingles, Terrence Shannon Jr.
- Power forward: Julius Randle, Leonard Miller, Josh Minott
- Center: Rudy Gobert, Naz Reid, Luka Garza
For the sake of simplicity, all players on exhibit-10 contracts were voided from this depth chart. This is purely looking at all the players that we know will be in a Timberwolves uniform this coming season. First off, the starting lineup of course becomes the most interesting topic after this massive change.
Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels and Rudy Gobert should all still receive the starting nod. The final starter will almost certainly be Julius Randle, who fills in for KAT at the starting four spot. There are already some questions about how Gobert and Randle will work next to one another, but it is hard to see Finch benching either.
From there, Donte DiVincenzo moves into the second option at two guard, with Nickeil Alexander-Walker being moved behind Jaden McDaniels in the depth chart. Technically, Alexander-Walker is still listed as a shooting guard, but he moves into the small forward category simply because Finch is not going to bring Joe Ingles off the bench before him, in all likelihood.
The remainder of the depth chart remains mostly unchanged. Perhaps one of the biggest upsides to trading Towns is that Minnesota can still get a large percentage of his contributions through playing Naz Reid. It feels certain that the coaching staff will toy with playing him next to both Gobert and Randle, with some undoubtedly fun outcomes on the way.