Karl-Anthony Towns is eligible to sign a four-year extension this summer that could be worth over $270 million. Coming off a championship run he helped spearhead, the New York Knicks aren’t exactly working from a position of strength.
Except, the Boston Celtics’ decision to trade Jaylen Brown, and the return they accepted for his services, begs to differ. Teams may finally be rethinking how much they are willing to pay players who are not consensus top-15 stars every year.
This discussion is moot if you think the league views KAT as a consensus lead star. As the NBA’s foremost, if not only, Victor Webmanyama foil, Towns has not been held in higher esteem since he was a draft prospect.
Still, it wasn’t that long ago the Minnesota Timberwolves moved him in large part because of his contract. Even more recently, at last season’s trade deadline, Towns’ value was considered next to nil.
So if the Association’s front offices are walking back what they’re willing to pay second-tier stars, the Knicks stand to benefit in contract negotiations.
The Jaylen Brown discourse is going to impact Karl-Anthony Towns
Conversations surrounding Brown’s true value have gone off the rails in so many ways. It is true, however, that the Boston Celtics have only been statistically better with him on the floor twice in 10 years.
Plenty of noise is baked into that tidbit. But it’s not a racket Towns has to hear. His teams have always spit out a better net rating when he plays.
This doesn’t mean he’s automatically considered a top-10-or-so player. He’s not. And as a handful of league executives told The Athletic’s Jay King and Sam Amick, the “most significant suppressor to Brown’s market was his massive salary,” because teams are no longer acting as if they can shell out 35 percent of the cap to multiple players.
Jalen Brunson’s discounted contract won’t spare Towns’ next deal from being viewed through these terms—largely because that discount probably is not going to last much longer. He will be on a new deal by 2028-29 (player option), at which point his max salary would be nearly $64 million.
New York may be able to extent KAT for cheaper than expected
The Knicks will not add an iota of leverage to extension talks this summer if Towns believes another team will be waiting with max money in 2027 free agency (player option). Yet, that is precisely where New York’s edge would come from. If most of the league doesn’t view Brown as a primo asset on his current (and next) deal, similar thoughts will apply to Towns.
This isn’t an attempt to downplay KAT’s value to the Knicks. It’s a nod to the NBA’s potentially new reality.
The days of reflexively maxing out stars who aren’t routinely MVP candidates or All-NBA Second Team staples into their mid-30s and beyond appear to be over. It’ll be a genuine shocker if Towns signs an extension worth the full $270-plus million freight.
While this is bad news for his bank account, it’s a welcomed development for a Knicks team that already needed him to take less than the max to preserve the crux of the current core. Now, though, any discount won’t necessarily be him doing them a favor. It’ll be a reflection of the market for stars on his level.
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