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The New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves are finalizing a blockbuster trade involving All-Stars Julius Randle and Karl-Anthony Towns, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday night.
The deal, which had been building steam over the past 24 hours, will see Randle and Donte DiVincenzo wind up in Minnesota and Towns in New York. The Knicks are set to add a center in Towns to shore up their biggest weakness, while Minnesota is adding shooting and versatility in its quest to exceed last season’s run to the Western Conference finals.
Minnesota also will receive a 2025 top-13-protected first-round pick from New York via the Pistons.
Charlotte will be the third team in the trade, sources told ESPN, and the Hornets are expected to receive draft compensation for helping make the deal work financially.
Having just arrived back in Minnesota for training camp, Towns was focused on building off the Timberwolves’ West finals run and the development was “completely unexpected,” a source familiar with his thinking told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.
Towns, who grew up a little under an hour outside of New York City in central New Jersey, will immediately slot into New York’s starting lineup at center, filling a massive need for the Knicks — particularly in light of incumbent center Mitchell Robinson being ruled out for at least the first two months of the season earlier this week due to offseason ankle surgery.
Towns, 28, is a four-time All-Star and a two-time All-NBA selection who has career averages of 22.9 points and 10.8 rebounds while shooting 39.8% from 3-point range. Last season in Minnesota, he averaged 21.8 points and 8.3 rebounds, while shooting 50% from the field and 41.6% from 3-point range. The No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA draft helped Minnesota advance in the playoffs for the second time in the franchise’s 35-year history while making the West finals for the first time in 20 years (it lost to Dallas in five games).
Towns will reunite with current Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, whom he played under in Minnesota (2016-19).
Randle, who turns 30 in December, averaged 24.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists for New York last season in 46 games before suffering a dislocated right shoulder Jan. 27. After two months of rehab, he opted to undergo season-ending surgery in April.
He is expected to be ready for the start of training camp, sources said.
Randle signed with New York in 2019 and has since played the best basketball of his career, making three All-Star teams and a pair of All-NBA teams while helping the Knicks make the playoffs in three of the past four seasons — matching an accomplishment the franchise has achieved only one other time this century.
DiVincenzo, 27, signed a four-year free agent deal with the Knicks last summer and went on to make a career-high 283 3-pointers. Sources told ESPN that Minnesota was high on DiVincenzo as a free agent after he played one season with the Golden State Warriors, and his shooting will be especially needed on a Wolves team that was already a bit light in that area and now is losing Towns, one of the best-shooting big men in the league.
Making the deal now means the “Villanova Knicks” — DiVincenzo, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges — never will play a single game together after New York made another massive trade earlier this summer to acquire Bridges from its crosstown rival, the Brooklyn Nets.
In that deal — the first trade between the two New York teams in 40 years — New York sent out four of its own unprotected future first-round picks, a future protected Milwaukee Bucks pick, a future first-round swap and a second-round pick.
Because Minnesota was well into the second apron and New York was bumping up against the first one, a third team was needed to make the deal work financially. That’s where Charlotte came in, sources said, as the Hornets were able to use salary cap exceptions to take on money from the Knicks to make the deal legal.
Doing the deal now will result in the Hornets getting draft capital for its exceptions — ones it otherwise could have held until later in the season, sources said.
Contractually, Towns is in Year 1 of a four-year, $220 million supermax extension he signed in 2022. Randle has $28.9 million on his contract for this coming season and a $30.9 million player option for 2025-26. DiVincenzo has three seasons left on his contract.
At ESPN BET, the Knicks entered the day at +800 to win the NBA title this season. After the trade, those odds moved to +700, behind only the defending champion Boston Celtics (+340) and the Oklahoma City Thunder (+650).
The Athletic first reported talks on the deal.