The New York Knicks have not offered Karl-Anthony Towns a new contract extension. The reason why? They want to be able to trade their star big man at any time.
The Knicks are certainly no stranger to making trades. They have done so again and again to build this very team, including directly trading for most of their core rotation. Jalen Brunson was signed in free agency, but Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns were all added via trade.
Towns, in fact, came on board via a trade just prior to the start of last season, and he admirably adjusted to a new team and a new scheme and had an All-NBA season for the Knickerbocker. One massive concern when New York traded for him was his expensive contract, but for one season at least, he lived up to his paycheck.
Will he continue to do so? That is an open question, especially as he will turn 30 years old a month into the season, but as one of the league's premier shooting big men his size and shooting touch should age well, and his defense was never much to begin with. He is due $53 million this season, $57 the following year and has a player option for $61 million in 2027-28, his age-32 season.
The Knicks are locked into that contract amount, but the question is whether they want to extend that deal. Towns signed his deal two years ago so he is eligible to add a few years onto the end of his current contract. Given how well he played last season it is reasonable to have a discussion around whether New York is ready to commit.
It turns out that they are not.
The Knicks want to be able to trade Karl-Anthony Towns
Brian Windhorst and Tim Bontemps of ESPN confirmed what others have reported in recent weeks, that the Knicks and Towns are not discussing an extension this offseason. While you can logically piece together why that would be, they said it explicitly: Towns is more tradeable on his current deal than if he had another two expensive seasons tacked on.
Having a bona fide superstar player under contract at any price is a boon to trade value; if you trade for a no-doubt Top-10 player, you want them contracted with your team for as long as possible.
The opposite is true if a player is overpaid. It may be worth it to handle a little extra salary for a season or two if the player is good enough to propel winning, but the more years on a questionable contract, the harder it is to sell another team on trading for them. Towns projects to continue playing like an All-Star, but he is being paid like a superstar.
Adding another two years and $131 million to his deal would add an anchor to his trade value that drags it down into the depths. The odds that Towns would be worth $67 million at the age of 35 are slim; committing to those odds now is foolhardy. Yes, the salary cap will continue to go up, but Towns' overall basketball ability will likely go down as he ages -- as it does for anyone not named LeBron James or Stephen Curry.
The Knicks want to keep their options open moving forward. They may be committed to Jalen Brunson as their No. 1 star, but they have proven over the past few years that anyone else is fair game to be moved in the right trade. Julius Randle, fellow Villanova alum Donte DiVincenzo, RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley -- all traded away in the last two years.
If Leon Rose and company see a trade that makes the team better, they want to the flexibility to pull the trigger -- even if that means moving on from an All-NBA center. Towns is expendable at the right price to this team, and that's why signing him to a lucrative contract extension is a non-starter.