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We know the New York Knicks are interested in trading for Giannis Antetokounmpo. We can logically deduce that if the Knicks do indeed trade for Antetokounmpo, Karl-Anthony Towns, by virtue of his similarly sized max contract, would be included in the deal for financial purposes. While making a trade without Towns is technically possible, it would evaporate New York’s critical wing depth. This has been the unspoken truth behind New York’s season-long pursuit of Milwaukee’s two-time MVP. For the Knicks to get Antetokounmpo, they almost certainly need to give up Towns.
But on Monday night, Marc Stein dropped a potential bombshell. There is apparently a “persistent belief” among rival teams that Towns is available in trades that may not directly include Antetokounmpo. One name Stein offered as a potential Knicks target was Jrue Holiday, not only because his defense would be welcome next to Jalen Brunson, but because his presence would make New York that much more enticing for Antetokounmpo, his former New York teammate.
Why would the Knicks consider trading Towns?
There’s a lot to unpack here. The raw concept of trading Towns, Giannis or not, does make some sense. New York’s achilles heel is the poor defense it gets from its two best players. Brunson is entrenched and beloved in New York. The Knicks wouldn’t trade him for pretty much anything. Towns doesn’t have the same organizational capital. He’s been on the team for only a year-and-a-half. Reporting from The Athletic last season indicated that New York’s locker room was frustrated with Towns’ defensive habits, particularly his habit of playing the wrong coverage with no explanation as to why.
Interestingly, the data points to Brunson as a far bigger defensive problem than Towns. This season, lineups featuring Brunson and Towns rank in the 23rd percentile in terms of defensive efficiency, according to Cleaning the Glass. Lineups featuring Brunson and no Towns rank in the 15th, actually getting worse without him. But lineups featuring Towns and no Brunson? They rank in the 89th percentile defensively. A similar story played out last season. Knicks lineups featuring Towns and no Brunson ranked in the 77th percentile defensively, but lineups featuring both ranked in the 41st. In the playoffs, Towns on, Brunson off lineups ranked in the 99th percentile by allowing only 99.3 points per 100 possessions. Lineup data is tricky, especially in small samples. But as flawed as Towns is defensively, it certainly seems as though Brunson is more of a problem on that end of the floor.
But Brunson is, again, entrenched. He’s also the superior offensive player, one of the best in all of basketball. And that’s a key element of what’s going on here. The Knicks were well aware of Towns’ defensive foibles when they got him in September 2024. The theoretical tradeoff of playing Towns at center when he isn’t a rim-protector is getting elite shooting out of a spot in the lineup that typically doesn’t provide it. The theory of New York’s roster was to be average defensively and great offensively.
That just hasn’t been the case, and while this isn’t the only issue, it’s worth noting that Towns, the self-styled “greatest big man shooter of all time,” just hasn’t made shots at the rate New York expected after acquiring him. Last year, until Jan. 15, Towns made 44.9% of his 3s. Then it was reported that he had a bone chip in his right thumb. He shot 38.6% on 3s the rest of the regular season, 35.1% in the playoffs, and is at 36.4% this season. If Towns isn’t an elite shooter, the whole bargain sort of falls apart. Towns is averaging 20.5 points per game, the second-fewest of his career. Lineups featuring Towns and Brunson are scoring in the 78th percentile league-wide. Very good. Not elite, and not enough to overcome the defensive deficiencies of the pairing.
So if building a team around an elite offense and a so-so defense isn’t working, a Towns trade would effectively invert that dynamic. Brunson is a defensive liability, but if the Knicks surrounded him with defensive role players (like, say, Holiday, with Mitchell Robinson starting at center), the hope is that they’d be able to build a better defense with a minimal drop off offensively. Losing Towns would hurt on that front, but the Knicks still have Brunson and they’re still one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the league. The parallel here would be the Knicks in the second half of the 2023-24 season. Julius Randle got hurt in late January, leaving the Knicks with Brunson, offensive rebounding and a ragtag group of role players that ranked sixth in offense for the rest of that season.
What sort of market could the Knicks expect for Towns?
Things start to get tricky when you try to construct a trade. If the Knicks had any indication that Milwaukee was interested in Towns, they would hold onto him and reserve him for an Antetokounmpo trade. But common sense would indicate that a Bucks team that probably wants to pivot into some sort of rebuild (even without control of its own draft picks) probably wouldn’t want a 30-year-old center on a supermax contract. If the Knicks do wind up trading Towns for something that isn’t Giannis, it will probably be for one of two reasons. Either they’re trying to liquidate an asset Milwaukee doesn’t want to try to set up a Giannis trade later, or Giannis has been traded somewhere else, at which point, they’re just looking to reshape the team in the manner described above.
Either scenario would require pretty substantial interest in Towns on the market. Maybe that interest exists. But think about the trade market surrounding big-name players on max contracts this season. Trae Young was effectively traded for a cap dump in CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert. It’s not even clear if there is a team with expiring salaries interested in making that sort of trade for Ja Morant. Anthony Davis had a more robust market when he was healthy, but it wasn’t exactly booming. Reporting indicated hesitance on Atlanta’s part, for instance, to include struggling No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher in such a trade. It never seemed at any point this season that Davis was going to net, say, multiple first-round picks or impact players.
No two trades are alike. Young and Morant are small point guards, an archetype quickly falling out of fashion in the modern league. Towns, obviously, is not. He’s a big man, and he’s a younger and more durable one than Davis. But there’s a reason Knick fans quietly discussed the idea of swapping Towns for Davis when he was healthier. It’s very, very difficult to build a coherent defense with a center who doesn’t protect the rim. Davis does. Towns doesn’t. Minnesota worked around this problem by playing Towns at power forward next to Rudy Gobert. The tradeoff there, though, is that Towns’ shooting goes from a superpower at center to merely pretty valuable at power forward. He’s great offensively at either position, but his highest ceiling is at center, and that might not be defensively viable.
More pertinent here is Towns’ contract. He is currently tied as the ninth-highest paid player in the NBA. He has two years left after this one, including a $61 million team option for the 2027-28 season. The crunch of the aprons has made teams queasier than ever about adding big salaries. That’s part of why Minnesota traded him when it did, and it’s part of what compelled Atlanta to take so little for Young. What’s happening in New York is a pretty sobering look at the limitations Towns at his salary imposes on a roster. If the Knicks don’t feel they can win a championship with Towns, despite having one of the best pairs of wing defenders in the NBA in OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges and a stellar defensive center on its bench in Robinson, what hope do less talented teams have?
There’s never been a worse time to trade an aging, expensive veteran with flaws. That’s even reflected in Antetokounmpo’s market. He’s one of the three or four best players in the world. Why aren’t there a bevy of asset-rich teams lining up to outbid the Knicks? Because he’s getting older, he’s incredibly expensive and he has a playing style that doesn’t seem like it would age especially well. He’s so good that he’s still going to generate a significant trade return. Young, Morant and Davis haven’t yet.
To proffer a guess, I suspect Towns would fall somewhere in between those two camps, but leaning closer to the Young-Morant-Davis camp. The thing about trade value is that it’s not fixed. It doesn’t matter if 28 teams aren’t interested in a player if one absolutely loves him. Towns is a unique enough talent at a scarce enough position that, even if these trends scare off most of the league, there would inevitably be a few teams tantalized enough by the prospect of trading for a center that’s an elite shooter that the Knicks would still be able to generate positive value.
OK… what are the potential Towns landing spots?
We start, of course, with the Trail Blazers, just because Holiday is the only player Stein cited as a possible Knicks target. The concept New York would probably prefer would be something involving Holiday and Jerami Grant, a useful wing, along with picks (Portland has a surplus). Making the money work there would involve giving up another core player, though, so it’s more likely Holiday would come with Robert Williams III to replace some of the lost center minutes from Towns and Matisse Thybulle. New York would send out Guerschon Yabusele and a minimum salary as well to match money.
There’s a theoretical fit here for Towns. In Donovan Clingan, Portland has a rim-protecting big man similar to Gobert to protect him defensively. Portland has the fourth-highest 3-point attempt rate in the NBA… but makes the lowest percentage of its 3s in basketball. Towns introduces more shooting to a team that could use it. His presence would likely be pretty beneficial for Scoot Henderson when he eventually returns. Guards who struggle to shoot 3s tend to thrive next to bigs who can make them. Portland’s defense has been up-and-down this year, but last year’s success suggests there’s enough here to protect Towns on that end of the floor. For now, Portland’s ambitions are more modest than New York’s. The Blazers are not trying to win the 2026 championship. Getting Towns as a floor-raiser to start consistently making the playoffs makes some sense.
Still, this sort of trade would oppose the identity Portland has seemingly been trying to build lately. Wasn’t the Holiday trade a declaration of a defensive-minded intent? Would Portland want to bring in another big man right as Clingan is starting to blossom? Especially with No. 16 overall pick Yang Hansen waiting for more minutes? That’s less clear. And what sort of pick compensation could New York expect? Milwaukee’s incredibly valuable future first-round picks from the Damian Lillard trade are surely off-limits. Maybe Orlando’s 2028 pick, gained in the draft night trade that netted Hansen, could be available? When the Knicks traded for Towns, they gave up a first-round pick that became No. 17 overall. It’s hard to imagine New York doing much better here, a pick expected to land in the middle of the first round, not a pile of valuable future picks with upside.
For now, I’d file Portland away under “only for the right price.” Little about the way they’ve operated under this front office suggests they’d break the bank for Towns. So who else is out there?
Keep an eye on the Bulls. There’s been a lot of reporting this season about Chicago wanting to emulate Indiana’s roster-build from last season, with Josh Giddey as their Tyrese Haliburton. That reporting indicates that they are looking for their version of Pascal Siakam… but the shooting Myles Turner gave them at center was critical as well. Perhaps Chicago could view Towns as its long-term center, Matas Buzelis as its long-term power forward, and then try to fill in the defensive gaps with its two other slots next to Giddey in the starting lineup.
The Bulls have all of their own first-round picks, plus a lottery-protected choice from Portland that could convey any time between now and 2028 (or convert into a second-rounder if it stays in the protected range all three years). Critically, Chicago also has oodles of expiring contracts New York could either take for itself or flip elsewhere for players it might want. Coby White has interest around the league. Ayo Dosunmu would fit in well with the Knicks. Nikola Vučević could give the Knicks a lower-leverage offense-first center to fill in for some of Towns’ minutes, but not all of them. If Chicago wants Towns, the Bulls are probably the team with the cleanest path to getting him. It might require a third team to get New York more of the veteran help it would presumably want, but it’s doable.
What about New Orleans? For now, the Pelicans seem committed to keeping Zion Williamson and their roster core, but the reality around Derik Queen long-term is that he would benefit more from a center that can shoot than a front-court partner like Williamson who needs to handle the ball. The Knicks presumably wouldn’t want Williamson, but he could be the outgoing salary for New Orleans in a three-team deal. If the Knicks could get Herb Jones, a defensive star on a team-friendly contract, that would likely be a best-case scenario. Of course, the messaging out of New Orleans has been that he isn’t available, so it might have to be pick-centric or involve talent coming from elsewhere.
So… are the Knicks going to trade Towns?
My guess would be no. Remember, the Knicks move in silence. Nobody knew about the original Towns trade before it happened, or the Bridges trade for that matter. They don’t leak. This chatter seems to be driven more from rival teams than New York’s end, and it just seems hard to imagine the Knicks reshaping their team this drastically in the middle of the season without Antetokounmpo coming in.
Even if they believe trading Towns is in their long-term interest, could a team built in February really be equipped to win in May or June? That’s the goal here. After all, if Holiday is a target, he’s 35. He’s no spring chicken. Neither is this team. The window is now and maybe the next few years. They’d have to get a very significant return to justify the risk of making such a big in-season trade, and for the reasons we discussed, that doesn’t seem especially likely.
So if you’re looking for a prediction, I’d guess the Knicks make a move on the fringes, play out the season, and then pursue Antetokounmpo all out over the summer. If they get him, great, so long, Karl. If not? They consider a wider variety of options with the idea that they’d have a full season ahead of them to make a new roster work. Still, New York’s propensity for surprise moves means that almost anything is possible. The Knicks have started to right the ship lately, but they’ve had Towns in the building for a year and a half at this point. They know better than we do how serious his limitations are. If they don’t feel they can win it all with him, they’re not going to be afraid of taking a risk in trading him.