Suns have a new and frightening problem after Wolves/Knicks trade

The NBA had one, last big trade before the 2024-25 season gets underway, as the Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks traded Karl-Anthony Towns for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. There's a bit more to it than that - the Charlotte Hornets were also involved as a third team to get this deal done - but that's the core of the trade.

Now that the dust has settled, there are many who think the Knicks actually lost out here, despite getting the best player in Towns from the deal. Questions have always existed about the drive of Towns - and when you combine that with the personality he is and the self-proclamations that he's the best shooting big in league history - you can see why he rubs people up the wrong way.

Which is why the Suns could now be in even more trouble in the West.

We don't need to revisit this at length, but in the playoffs last season the Timberwolves swept them. The series was not close - and although Towns played his part in that win - it was inside the paint where the Suns had no answer for the size of Rudy Gobert. Towns did some damage in there too, but adding Randle to that mix is bad news for Jusuf Nurkic and Kevin Durant.

That's not even the main problem here though, as the departure of Towns allows the current Sixth Man of the Year to take on an even bigger role. We're talking of course about Naz Reid, the 25-year-old who was a breakout star in Minnesota last season. He missed only a single game, managing over 24 minutes per night and starting on 14 occasions.

The real problem for the Suns in particular is the 41.4 percent he shot from deep on what was easily a career high five attempts per game during the regular season. A number that fell to a still respectable 36.2 percent in the postseason. It's not that the Suns aren't capable of shutting down 3-point shooters, although defensively they are going to seriously struggle with their new starting lineup.

It's more that Reid is an extremely physical player, who has no problem battling it out with fellow bigs and crashing the glass. When he was on the court in that playoff series, you could argue the Suns had less of an answer for him than they did Towns. He's now going to get even more opportunities, and that is bad news if you're Phoenix.

The Timberwolves can also now trot out lineups that feature Gobert, Randle and Reid, and that should terrify opponents. Especially if Anthony Edwards is in that mix as well. The Suns had their own kind of jumbo lineup last season, that featured Nurkic, Durant and Bol Bol. But if that was a three-vs-three matchup against what the Timberwolves have, the Suns would get absolutely destroyed.

Reid is integral to that - and although we're not likely to see him share the court with Gobert and Randle very often - he's the one big they have who can do a little bit of everything. If Durant is guarding him then it means Randle or Gobert is likely dominating inside, while Nurkic on Reid doesn't even really bare thinking about.

It was great to see Grayson Allen go beast mode this offseason - and although that is surely going to help when he's on the court - it's a lot to expect him to keep a guy like Reid quiet. Which is why he's quickly emerging as one of the trickiest players in the league for the Suns to game plan for, because he hurts them in ways that few others can. The departure of Towns surely going to make that worse.