The Phoenix Suns should not trade for Karl-Anthony Towns

What will it actually take to acquire Karl-Anthony Towns?

This is the great and overwhelming question about the Karl-Anthony Towns to the Phoenix Suns rumor.

He is young (22). He is a superstar (NBA general manager’s picked him as the player they would most like to start a team with today). And he plays center, the most difficult position in the game to fill with quality, above-average talent.

Unless Towns lit the owner’s dog on fire (I REALLY hope he doesn’t do that), the Timberwolves are not going to give up on him and let him go for anything less than a godfather or grand slam offer, even if the package included the Suns’ first overall pick in the draft.

And while DeAndre Ayton looks like he might be the next Towns, compared to David Robinson by some analysts with others mentioning him in conversations with Shaquille O’Neal and even Hakeem Olajuwon, he has never played an NBA game. He has never averaged a double-double in the Association (like Towns has three times); averaged over 25ppg (like Towns has); he has never shot over 42% from 3 on any level, let alone the NBA (like Towns has); he’ has never made the playoffs, and never been an All-Star, (both things Towns has done); yadda, yadda, yadda…

Phoenix Suns

The hype around DeAndre Ayton is real and legitimate. But at the moment, that’s all it is – hype. All we can do is project and hope.

Karl-Anthony Towns has proven himself in the NBA, and yet has still not even reached the peak of his basketball powers.

Why in the world would the Timberwolves, a team on the rise, give up on that without getting pieces in return that would help them take that next step in their evolution?

However, since this is a rumor that apparently has some level of legitimacy to it, let’s say the Timberwolves were willing to ask about a deal. Would could the Suns offer?

Obviously, Devin Booker would be off the table. The plan would be to pair the two up and not keep them apart.

The first overall pick would be at the heart of the trade, so anyone that believes that the Suns could somehow swindle the Timberwolves out of their most valuable asset without giving up DeAndre Ayton or Luka Doncic is fooling themselves.

The Suns could certainly offer additional draft picks to try and keep their young core together, so 16 and 31 this season would obviously be on the table as would their first round pick next year, probably Milwaukee’s and even Miami’s 2021 unprotected pick as well.

But again, while those are all great assets, especially in trades, 16 and 31 this season would have very little value for Minnesota, and future picks would hold the most value only if they were very high in the lottery, or if they were then flipped for other players (something the Suns have been trying – unsuccessfully – to do thus far, therefore it’s not a foregone conclusion that Minnesota would suddenly be able to pull off such a desired move in their favor), something that the Suns cannot guarantee Minnesota on any level.

So the ‘Wolves would then likely be looking for currently active players trying to make themselves a better team in the near-term, and less with an eye on long-term growth. (Lest we forget, Jimmy Butler will be 29-years-old at the start of the 2018-19 season. He doesn’t have a whole lot of prime left and they are counting on his ability to carry the team as one of the ways to get them over the top. If they lose out on Towns and have to develop a new core of players for the next 2-3 years, it completely mitigates Butler’s prime years and his acquisition becomes an entire waste of energy and time.)

While I don’t think that the Suns would part with Josh Jackson and  the first overall pick (not to mention, in Minnesota, Jackson is fairly redundant with Butler and Wiggins already manning the wings), I also don’t think that Marquese Chriss is enough. He isn’t a star with Phoenix and there is no reason to believe that he would be a star in Minnesota as well.

Packaging Chriss and Dragan Bender in my mind isn’t enough as well since now you’re sending them two  players they need time to develop and not just one. But beyond that, who? There really isn’t anyone else on the Suns’ roster that would help make Minnesota better now.

Would Brandon Knight be an upgrade over Jeff Teague? If healthy, yes. But is that enough? No. (Plus Teague is under contract at $19M per year through 2019-20. If they acquired Knight, then they’d have to find a way to trade Teague, a contract I guarantee the Suns wouldn’t want to pick up, but would have to to make contracts work.)

In the end, the trade would probably have to be a five-for-one or six-for-two kind of move, something that I think the Suns would be willing to do provided it’s the right five or six, however, it would be steep nonetheless, and there is no guarantee that Phoenix has a package five that Minnesota would really want in exchange for a superstar.

Five-for-One:

Six-for-Two:

Be 100% honest with yourselves: while you know you would accept either of those deals as a Suns fans, do you really  think that Minnesota would?