It is difficult to conjure a happier development for those addicted to low comedy than the phrase "Timberwolves-Knicks trade," so to them we bequeath the Friday night news that these two deeply and persistently weird franchises completed the most inexplicably timed big trade in recent league history. Put another way, while everyone else was doing their preseason media fun fairs, the Knicks and Pups were frantically scrubbing their rosters for wildly differing reasons. The Knicks needed a center because they had none, and the Wolves needed Julius Randle because how better to clog the traffic in front of Anthony Edwards?
Both teams seem to be on the rise, at least superficially, and positioned themselves to make a blockbuster deal each can claim unconvincingly puts them over the top. The Knicks get Karl-Anthony Towns, the beetle-browed post who has frustrated as much as he has entranced because he is capable of such grand levels of enchantment, and can complete the task of making this Jalen Brunson's team. The Wolves get some cash and cap relief and a player looking for a new contract who holds the ball enough to frustrate their newfound franchise face. The new blood on both ends suggests that Minnesota's conference finals appearance and the Knicks' continued slow boil are ready for enhancement.
Then again, and we think you already know this, it's the Wolves and the Knicks we're talking about here, and nothing good comes from expecting either of them to be ready for greatness. The Knicks' side of the Towns deal makes some sense, if you remove the fact that Towns thrived with Ruby Gobert alongside him for grunt work and Edwards took on some of the expectations ladled upon Towns. In New York, Towns will be expected to be a savior in ways that Brunson has not yet achieved because (a) he is taller than Brunson, (b) is the new toy in the shop window, and (c) his first agent, Leon Rose, runs the Knicks now. Towns' history suggests that this new level of scrutiny will be tough on his neck, shoulders, and trapezoids, not to mention his brain box. One should not be optimistic for the sake of optimism here, even if he gives the Knicks their most noteworthy interior presence since Patrick Ewing.
But the Wolves are chaos incarnate, starting with their ongoing ownership fight between Spanish American War veteran Glen Taylor and nouveaux riches/owners-in-training Marc Lore and Alex (The Alex) Rodriguez. After a protracted fight over whether Taylor promised to sell the team to Lore and A-Rod, they are still awaiting an arbitration hearing that won't settle the issue of who owns what until the new year—which still won't settle the issue because Lore and Rodriguez still have to be approved by the other 29 NBA owners, many of whom might find Taylor preferable only because he's already in the room and has never caused anyone any difficulty, especially competitively.
That they were able to do this deal at all is remarkable because most ownership squabbles lead to stasis throughout the organization. In Minneapolis, presidente di tutto il basket Tim Connelly has a sweetheart deal that allows him to do pretty much whatever he wants with the team itself and to leave if anyone ever objects. Why he thinks Randle is the missing piece is anyone's guess, but he has surely seen the outer limits of the Towns-Gobert-Edwards triumvirate, not to mention the money crunch that Towns and Edwards' new contract requirements created. Randle's negotiations for a new deal himself ought to be hilarious given his new locale.
But to merge Connelly's desperation with Rose's at such an odd time makes this more than your ordinary my-problem-meets-your-solution exchange of human beings. This makes each team demonstrably weirder, and in the case of the Wolves arguably worse. The Knicks have Poutin' Jimmy Dolan at the top of the organizational pyramid, so they're already hosed, and the Wolves have, well, apparently nobody. That makes that part of this trade a wash.
It is, however, nice to know that big swings know no offseason. It just takes—well, who the hell knows at this point? It's the Knicks and Wolves, so anything can happen and, historically, most of it is bad and all of it is bizarre. And if we're honest about it, we're down for both.
