New CBA scared Timberwolves into trading Karl-Anthony Towns while they still could

The canary in Minnesota’s coal mine was Brandon Ingram. In June, the New Orleans Pelicans traded one of their centers (Larry Nance Jr.) for Dejounte Murray, a player who replicates a significant chunk of what Ingram does offensively, and allowed the other (Jonas Valanciunas) to walk in free agency. They could not have more clearly telegraphed their intention with that decision. Murray was introduced to replace Ingram’s shot-making. Herb Jones and Trey Murphy are ready to play his position. The center position was left entirely vacant. The goal after acquiring Murray was to flip Ingram in a deal that included a replacement center. The Pelicans were more than justified in assuming such a deal would be out there. It’s not usually hard to trade 27-year-old wings who have made an All-Star team.

It’s September and Brandon Ingram is still a Pelican, and money is the simplest reason why. Ingram is an impending 2025 free agent that is eligible for an extension. It doesn’t make sense for New Orleans to pay him, but the rest of the market is scared to do so as well. Before the 2023 CBA, it was the sort of contract you offered thoughtlessly. It was the Zach LaVine or Bradley Beal max, a decision to retain an asset regardless of price. But in the new world? No way. Ingram is too flawed. His defense and playmaking are too inconsistent. His shot selection is all wrong. The injuries come too frequently. You can’t pay a $35 million player $50 million. It’s a non-starter, no matter how excited most teams would be just to have a $35 million player. That’s how a 27-year-old All-Star became nearly untradeable overnight.

Karl-Anthony Towns is a 28-year-old former All-Star. He’s gotten there several times more than Ingram has and ranked 12 spots above him on the CBS Sports top 100 rankings. But unlike Ingram, he doesn’t want the hefty contract. He already has it. He’s owed another $220 million over the next four seasons. He’s a better player at a less valuable position, and he’s a year older. He’s coming off of an inconsistent playoff run in which he had more games below 20 points (nine) than above (seven). He’s never been a good defender. He fouls too much. He is, in short, a risk. He wasn’t a risk the Timberwolves could afford to keep taking. They could not afford to get Ingram’d.

If push comes to shove, the Pelicans can let Ingram walk. They don’t have to pay him, as wasteful as sacrificing such an asset would be. The Timberwolves didn’t have that option. They had a four-year super max contract on a balance sheet that simply could not sustain it. Anthony Edwards is about to start a Rose Rule max contract, which opens at 30% of the salary cap. Rudy Gobert is at the end of the super max deal he signed in Utah, and before the Towns trade, he had Minnesota over a barrel. With a 2025-26 player option, he holds the power to significantly lower their luxury tax bill and perhaps knock them down an apron tier… if they’re willing to make him whole long term. Jaden McDaniels is underpaid relative to his market value, but he’s still making starter money. Naz Reid is making high-end bench money now, but when he opts out next summer, he’ll get starter money too. The Timberwolves have grown so prohibitively expensive over the past few years that this balance sheet could really only be justified by a championship.

Maybe Minnesota would have won the 2025 championship with Towns. The odds were against that no matter how much faith you had in their roster. There’s an inherent randomness to winning it all. Players get hurt. Matchups work against you. Shots you normally make don’t go in. Towns knows this well. He shot 3-of-22 from 3-point range in the first three games of the Western Conference Finals, all single-digit losses. Minnesota’s likeliest 2025 outcome was losing after a round or two in the postseason. Another 3-of-22 stretch might have made Towns completely untradeable at this price point.

What happens to Minnesota then? They’re suddenly allowed one more second apron season in the next four before their frozen draft picks start moving to the bottom of the first round. Do they let the younger Reid walk? Do they jettison McDaniels? The two of them together won’t make what Towns makes over the next few years. Edwards is the face of the franchise. He’s obviously bulletproof. Gobert is the foundation of the team’s defensive identity, and that player option at least allows the Timberwolves a bit of control over how they handle their balance sheet over the next few years. It was going to come down to trading Towns, who might not have been tradeable, or trading the role players, which would have deprived the younger Edwards of long-term running mates and the team of the depth and versatility it is going to need to contend. No outcome there is favorable.

So Minnesota swallowed hard and moved proactively. They traded Towns from a relative position of strength. Did he net the monster package he might’ve had he been moved a year or two earlier? No, but Minnesota turned him into a cheaper forward of a similar archetype and very valuable role player for a needed niche. Donte DiVincenzo could be a core player in Minnesota for years. Julius Randle could be a free agent in 2025. If he works out? The Timberwolves can re-sign him knowing the consequences. If he doesn’t? Let him walk for tax savings, or trade his salary slot into something that makes more sense. The 2025 protected Pistons pick the Timberwolves scored in the deal would help on that front. Even if it’s never traded, it’s a badly needed source of cheap labor for Minnesota over the next few years.

The Knicks had the benefit of foresight here. They didn’t inherit the Towns contract, they carefully crafted their books to absorb it. The Knicks aren’t paying Jalen Brunson market rate. This is what his generous discount subsidizes. They traded for Mikal Bridges in June and likely know what it will cost to extend him down the line. The Knicks won’t be a second-apron team this season. They literally can’t be, thanks to the hard cap imposed by the Bridges acquisition. They’ll have ways of kicking the can down the road long enough to squeeze four or five years out of this group. Minnesota realistically had two.

For all we know it might not even have had one. We don’t know who’s going to own this team at the end of the season. There has been credible reporting suggesting that the Alex Rodriguez-Marc Lore group planned to duck the luxury tax entirely upon taking control of the team. That would have been functionally impossible if Towns got the Ingram treatment. With Randle and Gobert on player options, it’s somewhat more feasible. The alternative is Glen Taylor, among the NBA’s thriftiest owners over the past several decades. Minnesota’s 2025-26 luxury tax bill is currently projected at around $66 million. The Timberwolves might pay that bill because they don’t have any other choice. Nothing about the decision-makers at play here suggests they were all that likely to pay it for long. One of those key decision-makers, president Tim Connelly, reportedly has an opt-out in his contract after next season. He hasn’t commented on the matter publicly. It’s not unreasonable to guess that Minnesota’s head of basketball operations wants to know who’s going to own the team before making a long-term commitment and what resources will be at his disposal if he does stay.

This is by far the most expensive Timberwolves team ever. Maybe ownership, whoever it ultimately ends up being, is willing to pay for a consistent winner. But retaining a consistent winner has never been harder. We’re in the world of aprons, where one bad contract can sink your entire operation. In the old world, Minnesota knows it could trade Towns at any point down the line because there will always be someone eager to pay up for the talent. Remember, Russell Westbrook played out a five-year supermax contract in which he played for five different teams. No contract was ever untradeable. In the new world, though? An expiring deal on a 27-year-old All-Star can be. The risk of getting Ingram’d in a year outweighed the reward of slightly higher championship odds right now.

That’s not exclusively a financial matter. It’s a basketball one too. The Timberwolves have more flexibility to retool around Edwards when he hits his peak in a few years. They’ve sacrificed a wider window now for a longer one as time progresses. Those just weren’t sacrifices teams were consciously making a few years ago. It’s one that teams will have to make every summer now.

It’s not hard to envision Denver wrestling with similar questions about Michael Porter Jr. The Bulls would trade LaVine for a song if they could. Rumors suggested that the Hawks traded Murray over Trae Young because Young couldn’t generate strong enough offers. This is the new normal, and those teams are still holding their flawed max players. The Timberwolves decided to move their own before it was too late.