Trade Rumours Now Escalating... (and I hate it)

Toronto just got pitched a trade for a six-time All-Star who won the NBA Championship in June. The Sporting News predicted it this morning. The Raptors are going to trade for the Knicks' $22 million big man, Karl-Anthony Towns. And now before we rip this thing to shreds, in a vacuum, Karl-Anthony Towns would actually be a good fit on the Toronto Raptors. We've talked ad nauseam about the rebounding deficit in that Timberwolves game, the issues with Jakob Poeltl at that center spot, and Karl-Anthony Towns is an elite three-point shooter as well. He'd be a really good fit on this team. But I looked at this trade that was pitched. I ran basically every possible iteration of getting Karl-Anthony Towns to Toronto that we could look at now and the trade deadline. And honestly, most of these packages are fairly cooked and a lot of them that are getting proposed and thrown around aren't even legal. By the end of this video, you'll see each version of this potential package where each of them fall apart, and why some of these things that are getting tossed around are just absolutely absurd. Let's start with the case, the pitch, as to why people want Karl-Anthony Towns on this team. Because as I said from the jump, he'd actually be a solid fit. So here's the pitch and what people are saying. Toronto went all in for Kawhi Leonard this summer, so go all the way. But notice what it doesn't have, a single player going back to New York. Bleacher Report's Dan Favell put it like this, the Raptors should put a pin in the Karl-Anthony Towns extension standoff with the New York Knicks while they're at it. Because the standoff between the Knicks and Karl-Anthony Towns is real. On October 9th, the Knicks shut down extension talks until later in the season. And two days later, Towns said, it was news to me, very disappointed to say the least. And the gap is money. Owner James Dolan does not want to go above the second apron. And the Knicks reportedly offered Karl-Anthony Towns four years, $200 million dollars, but Brett Siegel has reported that Towns wants $225 to $240 million dollars. And now to start off the season, things are getting a little bit messy with the New York Knicks. They're 0-3 in terms of their record, they lost to Philly, they lost to Boston, and they lost to the Orlando Magic who have been struggling themselves. And remember, the New York Knicks traded for Karl-Anthony Towns in October of 2024 and won the title just two years later. The front office doesn't mind a big swing, but it doesn't like paying for one twice. champs are at 0-3 right now, a big man who is unhappy, and a Raptors team that just got killed on the glass against the Minnesota Timberwolves. That's how trade proposals and articles like this get written and shared around because everyone sees Karl-Anthony Towns as a really good fit and everyone's down on the current big man for the Raptors in Jakob Poeltl. But before we dive into the reality of this trade and whether or not it makes sense with the Raptors, the packages, and all that, right now we are at 44,870 subscribers. And if you're subscribed right now. If you haven't hit that button just yet, make sure you guys hit that sub button because we are so, so close to that 45,000 subscriber mark. So let's dive deeper out there into the fit because there's no arguments. Karl-Anthony Towns would be very good on this team. We keep coming back to this Minnesota game, but the Wolves rebounded 49 times and the Raptors only got 34. Jakob Poeltl played 19 minutes in that game, scored zero points, one rebound, and he's at 5.3 rebounds per game this season and just two seasons ago he was nearly double that compare those numbers to Karl-Anthony Towns who even in a weird season for the New York Knicks is averaging 21 and 12 through three games and last season was at 20 and 11.8 if you built a big man in a lab for this Raptors team of course you might want a little bit more rim protection but on the offensive end in terms of rebounding Karl-Anthony Towns would be the perfect fit especially where the Raptors have discussed this entire offseason about shooting more threes, spacing the floor a bit more. Adding Karl-Anthony Towns to the squad would give a whole bunch more room for Scottie Barnes, Kawhi Leonard, RJ Barrett to slash the lanes as Karl-Anthony Towns is one of the best shooting big men of all time. Towns is the center that has hit 1,235 career threes, and this season he's made five in just three games so far. And he's shown up in the playoffs, and the playoffs use a plus 258 in terms of plus-minus. That's the highest plus-minus in a single postseason in NBA history. He also sneakily averaged 4.9 assists per game during that postseason run. The only other 7-footers to do that in the playoffs with a minimum of 10 games is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain. Since 1996-97 season, only 5 players have 16,000 points, 8,000 rebounds, and 1,200 threes in the regular season. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Russell Westbrook, and Karl-Anthony Towns. And he's only played 723 games. Every other name on that list has played at least 1,200. And for players that have averaged 20 points, 10 rebounds, and two threes per game for a whole season since the 96-97 year, only eight players have done it, and Karl-Anthony Towns is the only player who's done it twice. So for all the memes, for all the jokes, for everything that's brought up about Karl-Anthony Towns, He is a really good basketball player, and in my opinion, gets a little bit underrated from regular conversations across the league. And Toronto's biggest hole is the exact thing that he does every single night. The fit is real, but the actual trades to get him to Toronto is the problem. So let's look at these packages, because when you really dive deep in the mechanics of getting Cat to Toronto, that's where things really start to fall apart. The Toronto Raptors are hard capped at the first apron, So $209 million because of the Kawhi Leonard trade. And their apron number right now is $208.1 million. So that's about $900,000 of room. So under a million dollars to really navigate that hard first apron. So Karl-Anthony Towns makes $57.1 million at the moment. So if the Raptors were to make a trade, if they are going to make a deal, they have to send out at least $56.1 million. But what makes a trade even harder to pull off is the New York Knicks themselves are in a bit of a cap crunch. New York Knicks are less than $1 million under the second apron, and James Dolan reportedly wants to stay under it. And they can't take back more salary than they send out, so the ceiling is $57.1 million. So that's it. That's the whole window. If you're going to make a trade for Karl-Anthony Towns, you have to be between $56.1 million and $57.1 million. But we have to combine and put the puzzle together for all these different players and have to make their salaries match to between those two numbers and what that does to each and every one of these packages makes it very very tough to make a deal that makes sense so let's start the first one with the deal the Raptors shouldn't even consider in the first place you can't trade Scottie Barnes straight up for KAT I know the comments after a zero point game are going to be you have to just trade Scottie he's trash he says we shouldn't contemplate that in the first place and it's not even legal they're way under that window so let's throw that one out right away. Second, let's take a look at the package that has been posted everywhere and sent around. And it's the deal of RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl, and Jacoby Walter going out in return for Carl Anthony Towns. Now, this is the one that's being posted in articles, getting sent to me in DMs, all this stuff. But if you look at that deal, that's $52.9 million out for the Toronto Raptors. So basically, that adds $4.2 million to the Toronto Raptors cap that only has $1 million dollars of room to work with so Adam Silver the league front office cuts that off right away that trade is illegal so I don't really know why it's getting so much momentum and so much push but basically that deal cannot happen I've also seen this one because it would be a ridiculous story but it's the version where Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett go back to the New York Knicks in return for KAT but in that deal that is 62.1 million dollars so that's over to the New York Knicks ceiling, so making that deal also illegal. So what are the versions of this deal that the Knicks and the Raptors could actually execute a trade on? Well, there's this one where Emmanuel Quickley, Jakob Poeltl, Kyle Anderson, and Elijah Martin go back to the New York Knicks for $56.6 million. This deal is inside the window, but Martin cannot be traded until January 15th, so you have to wait a bit of time on that one. But realistically, unless you're tossing in all of our draft picks, and even then, it's very unlikely the Knicks are going to accept that offer. New York is looking for a cheaper tax bill next summer, and Quickley and Poeltl are making $59.8 million alone next season. Karl-Anthony Towns' option is $61 million, so it's not cheaper. Dolan's going to hang up, and if we're trying to get off Jakob Poeltl this desperately, the Knicks aren't going to be that eager to pick him up. So here's the version that works under both teams' cap rules, and it's the deal that the Knicks would actually have a chance at accepting. In this package, you're sending out Jakob Poeltl, RJ Barrett, Jacoby Walter, and Alan Graves, which puts the Toronto Raptors at $56 million just inside the window by a hair. Of all the stats and all the numbers sold you on Karl-Anthony Towns, I don't care how much you are really bought into the fit or how that positions the Toronto Raptors and all that stuff. This price is astronomical for the Raptors to pay for KAT. That's two of our young guys that have shown really, really high upside in Jacoby Walter and Alan Graves. I've also been adamant about not trading RJ Barrett. And sure, you get off of Jakob Poeltl, but then you also have another situation where your depth is completely depleted. You have 11 players on the roster and about $800,000 under the hard cap to fill three roster spots. Now, I do think that's the type of deal that the New York Knicks would accept. It drops their bill next season from $226 million to $203 million. They save $23 million and get two really exciting prospects while getting a productive player in RJ Barrett and a guy that can play the center position in Big Yak. So as cool as a fit Karl-Anthony Towns would be for the Toronto Raptors, every version of this trade right now is either illegal or absolutely guts the young talent out there on this team while losing some productive veterans as well. But say you're of the mindset, hey, a bunch of quarters are less valuable than a dollar in the NBA. You need that star player. The Raptors are great at developing young talent. You got to go all in with Kawhi Leonard right now. Then you have another issue that you have to deal with. Karl-Anthony Towns can opt into a $61 million option next season, and he wants a four-year extension with whatever team he's with, between $225 million and $240 million. extension he can decline that option and hit free agency next summer so Toronto could gut its young core for a player that walks in about eight months and if he stays the Toronto Raptors pay Kawhi Leonard 56.1 million Scottie Barnes 44.8 million and Karl-Anthony Towns 61 million dollars that's 162 million between three players then Toronto's tax bill next season gets even more messy they go up from $190 million to $213 million for eight players under contract. Now, that's not a contender with room to build. That's a team that is stuck. I don't want to understate who'd have to go out in a trade like this. RJ Barrett is averaging 21 points a game for this Raptors team, and Cat, yes, provides a different element, a different construction, a different style, but he's only averaging 21 points per game himself. And we've already seen the updates on Kawhi Leonard dealing with this knee injury right now, going to be out for multiple weeks, betting everything. Guys like Allen Graves, Jacoby Walter on the next two seasons, these three stars staying completely healthy throughout the year. That is a massive gamble, a much bigger gamble than just trading for Kawhi this off season. And this doesn't even mention how Jacoby Walter and Allen Graves are looking like guys that are actually going to be able to help the Toronto Raptors win games right now and they're on really cheap contracts at least until the 2028 offseason that's exactly not just the type of assets but the type of players that great teams want to have on their squad so here's the whole case both good and bad if you were running a pickup game and you could insert Karl-Anthony Towns out there on this team he would be an amazing pickup but rebounding the floor spacing the fit next to Scottie Barnes RJ Barrett all these dudes would be fantastic but Given how much we'd have to give out, given the current cap situation for this team and how it would look going into the future, I'm not making any version of this trade. That's not me saying Karl-Anthony Towns is overrated. He wouldn't be a good basketball player or anything like that. I think he gets too much slander across the NBA and sneakily has become one of the more underrated players in the league. But this deal does not make sense for the Toronto Raptors as the team is currently constructed, and especially with how the cap sheet is constructed for this team right now. The Raptors will have to make some moves. We'll have to do something to fix their problem rebounding the basketball. Jakob Poeltl has not proven just yet that he can be a reliable five that can play the day-in, day-out center position for 82 games. So Bobby Webb's just going to have to go out there, find us a rebounder, find us a fix to this problem while staying under that hard cap. And we're probably going to have to stop yapping about the idea of getting Karl-Anthony Towns. Tell me in the comments, would you accept that legal version of the trade for Karl-Anthony Towns? Leave your thoughts down below. And if you want the latest on the Kawhi Leonard injury situation, click this video right here.