Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert were teammates for two seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Many were skeptical about whether the pairing of two big men would work, but the team reached the conference finals while finishing first in defensive rating in 2023–24.
While the two are no longer teammates, they are still being compared to each other. Towns is eligible to sign an extension with the New York Knicks, as he has just one guaranteed year left (2027-28 is a player option). Ian Begley of SNY is using Gobert’s current contract as a baseline for what Towns can get:
"If I’m using the recent Rudy Gobert extension as a baseline, I could see an extension for Towns starting around $45 million," Begley wrote. "By signing this kind of deal, Towns would obviously lose the opportunity to make more money as a 2027 free agent. But given all the factors at play—the state of the NBA’s economics, teams’ approach to the second apron, and the Knicks’ title aspirations—there are reasons for Towns to play it safe and sign an extension."
Signing a Gobert-like extension would mean accepting less than the max. One has to wonder whether, if Towns had done that last time around, he would still be a member of the Timberwolves today.
Towns made too much, in the front office’s eyes for Minnesota to keep him
In the 2022 offseason, Towns agreed to a four-year supermax extension worth $220.41 million. Those types of deals are worth 35 percent of the team’s salary cap. By agreeing to that contract, it left the Wolves in a difficult situation as they made a decision that may not have occurred had Towns signed for less.
Right as the extension was about to kick in, the Wolves experienced buyer’s remorse. It wasn’t necessarily because of Towns’ play, but rather because they knew how difficult it is to build a championship team in the apron era with so many big salaries. The team had just signed Anthony Edwards to a huge extension that began in 2024–25. After a nine-year partnership, Towns was dealt away.
Towns can now extend with the Knicks for up to four years and $272 million. So the $45 million per year that Begley suggests, based on Gobert’s extension and adjusted for salary-cap inflation since Gobert signed, is substantially less than the $68 million annual average value that Towns can sign for.
Towns' potential extension has become a major talking point in New York because Jalen Brunson sacrificed a lot of money by signing his extension a year early. He did so to help the Knicks build a championship team around him, and, of course, that just occurred. Fans are hoping that Towns will do something similar.
If Towns takes an extension for less than the max, Wolves fans will wonder whether the 2015 first overall pick would still be in Minnesota if he had done that previously. To be fair, taking significantly less money wasn’t really en vogue until Brunson. Victor Wembanyama is an example of someone who recently followed Brunson’s lead, and perhaps Towns will be the next to do so.
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