Point blank: the three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA team recipient with the Knicks must remain a New York mainstay, especially now that Leon Rose and company strengthened the core that would play around him.
According to Knicks Fan TV on Twitter/X, the New York Knicks would be interested in trading for Karl-Anthony Towns, the Edison, NJ native whose “dream it’s been” to play in New York. The only feasible means to bring KAT to the Garden would be to cast off Julius Randle, along with other pieces, like Mitch Robinson and “Deuce” McBride, not to mention any necessary picks to pry the former Rookie of the Year, four-time All-Star, and two-time All-NBA “stretch five” commodity from Minnesota.
On the surface, and as Real GM can attest, KAT and Randle, save for Towns’s height advantage and Randle being a year older, the two are remarkably similar players. Both can score in bunches and are a threat from distance. Both have had success playing in Tom Thibodeau’s system. Both can rebound and distribute the ball, though Towns no longer rebounds at the rate he did during his first six seasons in the NBA (for a three-year stretch, from the 2016-2017 season to the 2018-2019 campaign, Towns averaged more than 12 boards per game), and Randle has experience playing point-forward, involving teammates at a better pace in Thibodeau’s offense. And alas, save for KAT’s pivotal performance against the defending champion Denver Nuggets in this year’s Western Conference semifinals, both have been less than desirable playoff performers for their respective clubs.
That said, while KAT solves a problem the Knicks have at the center position, New York would essentially find themselves still without a backup center, down a hard-nosed point guard to run the second unit, and without picks to build for the future. Quite frankly, why would the Knicks trade away a player like Julius Randle when a replacement like Towns isn’t particularly or measurably better than the person he’d be replacing, while still relinquishing two more players and picks in the process?
Honestly, any talk of bringing Towns to New York is foolish, especially at the expense of relinquishing Randle.
By and large, the reign of Leon Rose has made the New York Knicks bonafide title contenders—which includes Randle as part of the current roster construction—and any notion of shipping out Randle would be the equivalent of the Evan Fournier and Kemba Walker contracts, the only true blunders of Rose’s tenure in New York.
In 2019, a summer that brought Randle to New York and Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to Brooklyn (a year, too, when a Knicks’ late regular season victory, against the Timberwolves, no less, cost them the top pick in the NBA Draft, forcing them to “settle” for RJ Barrett with the third selection), the Knicks were derided for the state of their franchise and failure, once again, to bring star power to the Garden. The franchise had supposedly ceded control of the city to the Nets, who were thought to be building a dynasty across town.
Now, look at the turn of the events five years later.
KD and Kyrie are no longer in Brooklyn, leaving no lasting legacy behind, and one, mere playoff series victory to their name, even though their collective stature also helped bring James Harden aboard (he, too, has since departed). While Barrett may also be gone, he and Immanuel Quickley were traded for OG Anunoby, who starred with the Knicks in the latter half of the 2023-2024 season, especially in big moments, and for his efforts, was given a well-deserved contract extension, even in spite of his injury history. The player the Knicks failed to select in the 2018 NBA Draft, Mikal Bridges, instead went to the Nets, though now he’s a Knick, still under contract with New York for two years, given a chance to repeat his championship ways with his former Villanova teammates in Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVincenzo.
Not only have these incidents turned New York back to a blue and orange city, but they have also cemented the Knicks as a top-three team in the Eastern Conference alongside the Boston Celtics as returning champs and the Philadelphia 76ers, whom the Knicks defeated in six games in the first round of last year’s playoffs, a team with vengeance in mind with their recent acquisitions of Paul George and Caleb Martin and their extensions of Tyrese Maxey and Kelly Oubre, Jr., both of whom gave the Knicks fits despite New York’s eventual series win.
At at the center of it all, we cannot forget Julius Randle, who was averaging 24.0 PPG, 9.2 RPG, and 5.0 APG before a shoulder dislocation, failed rehab attempt, and ultimate season-ending surgery cost him the chance to compete in a playoff run whose injuries proved five or so too many, Randle included. A fully healthy Knicks team with Randle as the second scoring option behind Brunson likely places them in a favorable Eastern Conference finals matchup against Boston, whereby the Knicks would have pushed the Celtics—with or without a felled Kristaps Porzingis—to their limits. Given his procedure, one that was on his non-shooting shoulder, Randle has the chance to return hungry, especially considering that two consecutive seasons ended in injury, including the 2023 playoffs against the Heat, when an ankle ailment limited him, eventually resulting in surgery (coincidentally, a hard foul in traffic from Jaime Jaquez, another Heat player, ended Randle’s year in January in much the same way Bam Adebayo’s foul play ruined Randle’s 2023 campaign).
Alongside Robinson, Anunoby, Bridges, and Brunson, Randle has space to operate, likely seeing fewer double teams, given the opposing defense’s focus on Brunson and how effective Bridges and OG are from the corners. Should he remain on the floor while Thibs permits Brunson rest, Randle has Hart, DiVincenzo, and McBride around him, allowing greater opportunity to distribute the ball to three veritable shooters when double teams close out on him. In short, Randle has the opportunity to fortify his game in ways he couldn’t before.
By rightfully retaining Randle, the Knicks would extend good faith to a man whom many thought was not a star or worthy of a lucrative contract, and yet, through his time in New York, the Knicks have made three playoff appearances while he notched three All-Star nods, two All-NBA selections, and the Most Improved Player award, earning him a contract extension and the status of a player capable of shining under the bright lights of the big city.
By also keeping Randle, the Knicks need only re-sign Precious Achiuwa and swing a trade for Charlotte’s Nick Richards to fill the large vacancy left by Isaiah Hartenstein’s departure, allowing New York to avoid losing players and picks to land Utah’s Walker Kessler, who will likely command too much because of the otherwise difficult-to-deal-with Danny Ainge who spots a team like the Knicks, who needs a big or two off the bench.
In the end, calling on Randle to reclaim his winning caliber of play provides the Knicks a better shot at an NBA championship than simply giving up on him.
