The New York Knicks finally got their man. For years, whispers around the NBA told the same story: Knicks head of basketball operations Leon Rose wanted Karl-Anthony Towns at Madison Square Garden. Some believed it was only a matter of time before it happened. And now it has.
The NBA landscape quaked once more — as if the Mikal Bridges trade in June wasn’t shell-shocking enough — when it was reported that Towns was headed to the Knicks in exchange for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, with the Charlotte Hornets greasing the wheels as the third team.
There are many ways to view the Knicks-Wolves trade, but the most intriguing lens presents a fascinating subplot:
What if the Knicks and Wolves are each making a bet, not just on themselves, but that the Phoenix Suns will hold a fire sale in the coming months?
In such a scenario, each team would try to lure away a coveted superstar with close ties to an existing star. For the Knicks, that would be Devin Booker, who is tight with Towns, each a former client of Rose. The Timberwolves, on the other end, would set their eyes on Kevin Durant, whose side Anthony Edwards couldn’t leave at the Paris Olympics.
Yes, the Knicks-Wolves trade is massive with enormous reverberations across the league, but could the biggest wave be yet to come? Let’s start in New York, where Rose continues to build a burgeoning empire through his deep Creative Arts Agency connections.
Rose and the CAA connection
As a mega agent, Rose represented a who’s-who in the NBA, including LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Joel Embiid and Dwyane Wade. Upon being hired by James Dolan in early March of 2020, one of Rose’s first orders of business was to hire his right-hand man at CAA, Williams “Worldwide Wes” Wesley, to the front office, a man who has been known to some insiders as the most powerful, most important man in the basketball world.
Rose almost never talks to the media, but he made himself available to sit down with MSG announcer Mike Breen for a rare interview in June 2020 primarily so he could talk about the Wesley hire.
“Wes is one of the most well-respected and connected people in the basketball community,” Rose said. “I just think he’s going to bring so much to this organization. … This business is built on relationships. It’s built on how you treat people. It’s built on working hard. It’s built on all these characteristics that Wes possesses.”
From the front office to the floor, the Knicks’ CAA ties now run throughout Madison Square Garden. Tom Thibodeau? CAA client. OG Anunoby, whom the Knicks acquired and signed to a max deal? CAA. Jalen Brunson, whom the Knicks recruited and convinced to sign a below-market deal? CAA. Even Rose’s son, Sam, is a CAA agent who reps Brunson. And Towns? You guessed it: CAA. The family ties go further: Brunson’s father, Rick, was Rose’s very first NBA client as a scrappy young agent out of New Jersey. And now Rick Brunson is one of Thibodeau’s top assistant coaches on the Knicks’ sidelines.
Scoff all you want about Rose’s CAA connection. But it has helped chart the path for him and the Knicks to become an NBA superpower.
To understand how the Knicks went from a floundering 18-42 franchise when Rose took over basketball operations to a competent title contender, one needs to be acquainted with the shape-shifting power center of Rose, Wesley and CAA-repped John Calipari (Towns’ and Booker’s former coach at Kentucky).
For years, it was a highly influential, unofficial triumvirate that led to Final Fours, No. 1 picks and plenty of riches. Calipari was the coach. Wesley was the connector. Rose was the player agent.
One might think the story of Towns’ college recruitment dates back to 2012, when Towns announced he was reclassifying to the high school class of 2014 and committing to the Kentucky Wildcats to play for then-head-coach Calipari.
But that’s not the beginning. It goes back two years earlier, in 2010, when it was announced that a 15-year-old from New Jersey named Karl-Anthony Towns would be playing for the Dominican Republic national team alongside NBA players like Al Horford and Francisco Garcia. (Towns’ late mother Jacqueline Cruz-Towns was a native of the Dominican Republic.)
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In the lead up to the 2012 Olympics, Towns, Horford and Garcia traveled to the Kentucky Wildcats’ practice facility in Lexington as part of the Dominican Republic national team training to qualify. Horford, a champion at Florida, and Garcia, a Louisville product, joked about how their collegiate legions would hate the idea. But they were there because the national team’s coach was none other than Kentucky’s John Calipari, who took the job in 2011.
Why would Calipari, the grandson of Italian immigrants, agree to coach the Dominican team? One clue took the form of one of the top players in his high school class: Towns.
Calipari has insisted that he didn’t take the Dominican Republic head-coaching job with the hidden agenda of signing Towns to Kentucky. True or not, soon after, Towns chose Calipari’s Kentucky program and reached the 2014 Final Four in their first and only season together in Lexington. After Towns helped lead Calipari’s Wildcats to a 38-0 record, he announced he would forgo his remaining college eligibility, hire an agent and formally enter the NBA Draft. That agent? CAA’s Leon Rose, who was Wesley’s long-time attorney.
It should also be noted that Towns’ father, Karl Towns Sr., has been close to the Calipari-Rose-Wesley triumvirate from the grassroots New Jersey hoops circuit — Towns Sr. was a star at Monmouth himself and a prominent coach in the area, not far from where Wesley and Rose established their relationship in the 1980s. The Jersey connection was evident when Towns Sr. was seen pregame on the floor at Rose’s first game as New York’s top exec, per The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov, a game that Wesley also attended before being officially hired.
Now, the next CAA name to watch is Towns’ former Kentucky running mate, Booker.
Booker is the face of the aging Suns, a star-studded team that is set to shatter records with a projected combined salary and luxury tax bill north of $430 million. It’s an unfathomable price tag for a team that got swept in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Hamstrung by the new CBA restrictions on team building, the Suns pivoted into the only domain that isn’t constrained by the CBA, the coaching staff. Owner Mat Ishbia fired Frank Vogel and hired his second head coach in as many years, Mike Budenholzer, to steer the league’s most bloated payroll.
To put it plainly: the Suns are backed into a corner. Should the season go south quickly, it’s not hard to imagine the Knicks would come calling about Booker — if they haven’t already.
Booker is also the face of CAA’s unrivaled clientele. According to HoopsHype tracking, CAA ranks as the No. 1 agency in the sport, representing over $1 billion in player salaries and about $250 million more than the next-largest agency, Klutch Sports. The two top names on that list of CAA clients? Towns and Booker, who were featured on the cover of SLAM magazine in 2019 and proclaimed they, along with close pal D’Angelo Russell, would one day play together. (Russell, by the way, is also a CAA client.)
Could it happen in New York?
The Suns as the next potential domino
When the Knicks set their sights on a star, it’s safe to say they’ll go to extraordinary lengths to land him. Consider the case of Jalen Brunson. On the eve of 2022 free agency, Thibodeau and the Knicks hired Jalen’s father to become an assistant coach for the Knicks, his third stint on a Thibodeau coaching staff. Many around the league saw it as a package deal connected to eventually signing his son Jalen. Three weeks later, the Knicks convinced Brunson to leave the Dallas Mavericks and sign a $104 million contract. (If you thought putting Brunson’s father on the payroll was ambitious, look up how Wesley’s godson and former Rose client Dajuan Wagner landed at Memphis where Calipari coached.)
The league office, for one, considered the Knicks’ machinations in the Brunson signing to be overly ambitious. New York was penalized for tampering with Brunson ahead of free agency and lost its 2025 second-round pick in the process. It’s a small price to pay considering Brunson now holds the city in the palm of his hand.
The question now is whether this edition of the Knicks is seen as the final product or Rose has another co-star in mind.
With Brunson and Towns in the fold, the Knicks boast two All-NBA caliber stars on the roster along with former All-Defense members in Mikal Bridges and Anunoby. Throw in Josh Hart, and the Knicks stake claim to one of the best starting fives in the NBA. (Yahoo Sports’ sharp scribe Ben Rohrbach places them fourth in his new system.)
But there’s a wrinkle in the recent trade that leaves open the possibility that the Knicks aren’t done. By agreeing to this trade and sending out certain low-salaried players to the Hornets, the Knicks have strategically kept themselves below the dreaded second apron. This wiggle room isn’t insignificant. Importantly, it allows the Knicks to aggregate contracts in a potential trade. In the event that they creep over that second-apron line, the Knicks could only trade a player one-for-one, which would severely hinder their ability to chase another star player.
For years, Towns’ name has been connected to his close friend, Booker. (Their agent at CAA, Jennifer Holtz-Steinberg, considers Rose a mentor from their time working together.) By ducking ever so slightly under the second-apron line, the Knicks have kept that option alive. Because Towns is the only Knicks contract that matches Booker’s, a trade to bring the two together in New York would be impossible if the Knicks became a second-apron team.
It is now possible, if still a long shot, that the Knicks could bring Booker to New York to play alongside Brunson and Towns this season. By signing Anunoby to a long-term extension, the Knicks wield two defensive aces to bolster their wing position, but it also offers optionality. It makes one another expendable in case a superstar becomes available.
The 28-year-old Bridges, who is not a CAA client, is eligible to receive an extension this season, but that is an unlikely outcome considering that Bridges can ink a longer extension in the 2025 offseason. As it currently stands, Bridges makes just $23.3 million in 2024-25 and $24.9 million in 2025-26, positioning him as one of the better value contracts in the league. He’s also a former Phoenix Sun favorite.
If the Suns wanted to move Booker, they could bring back Bridges in a homecoming of sorts after they traded him in 2023 to the Nets as the crown jewel of the package for Durant. As of now, the Knicks don’t have any tradable first-round picks to include in the deal, having already sent them away in the Bridges and Towns deals. Certainly, the Suns would want to restock their barren draft cupboard, but if they’re getting a player of Bridges’ caliber, perhaps that’s not as much of a high priority.
Lest you think Booker one day coming to New York is a pipe dream, Rose and the Knicks have turned fantasies into realities over the last four years. Few could have seen Brunson turning into a top-5 MVP candidate at 4 Pennsylvania Plaza. Or acquiring Anunoby without giving up a first-round pick. Or prying Bridges away from the rival Nets. Or the Knicks acquiring Towns in his prime after a Western Conference finals run.
The Suns could also be a target for the Timberwolves looking to keep their star, Anthony Edwards, happy. It was a surprise to see Minnesota break up the team that just went further in the playoffs than it has in 20 years. One way to interpret the move was that it freed up the long-term books to go after a different Edwards co-star of its choosing. The Timberwolves now have a juicy expiring contract in Randle (he holds a player option for 2025-26) that could be the centerpiece of a team trying to offload long-term money.
Again, this is where the Ant-KD Team USA partnership becomes more tantalizing. In a sit-down interview with our own Vincent Goodwill during Team USA’s training camp, Durant said his respect for Ant “just went to another level” after their first-round playoff battle. At media day, Ant made sure to mention KD’s name when a reporter asked what he took away from LeBron James and Stephen Curry this summer in Paris.
If the Suns were going to make Durant available at some point down the road as part of a fire sale, it’s unlikely they’d have taken on Towns’ massive long-term money. The Wolves now have two expiring contracts in Rudy Gobert’s $43.8 million and Randle’s $28.9 million (both have player options for 2025-26). As a second-apron team, the Timberwolves currently lack the flexibility to aggregate contracts — say Randle and Jaden McDaniels — to get to Durant’s current $51.2 million. But there’s still time before the trade deadline or next summer to wiggle their way out of the second apron and make an Ant-KD pairing a real option.
In the end, the Knicks-Wolves trade could be the final chess move for each of these teams. But this is the NBA. As Rose told Breen four years ago, this business is built on relationships. That’s never been truer after the Towns acquisition. If the Suns implode, there’s a chance the relationships could grow even closer.