For all the noise around Karl-Anthony Towns and the Knicks, the cold reality is pretty simple: New York may not need to budge.
The Knicks are reportedly offering Towns somewhere in the range of $45 million to $50 million per year, and that is a long way from his max of four years and $276 million. Still, in a market where big-money free agency has dried up, that kind of number already puts him in rare company.
If this situation drags into the season and Towns turns down his $61 million player option, he will have interested teams. Whether those teams are actually attractive is another matter. The point is, the Knicks’ leverage may not be as fragile as it looks.
Since 2022, only seven players have landed contracts worth more than $25 million per year after switching teams in free agency. The list is short, and the details make it even more telling.
In 2022, Jalen Brunson signed with New York for four years at $26 million per season. In 2023, Fred VanVleet went to Houston at $42.8 million per year for three seasons, with the third year a team option.
The 2024 class included Paul George to Philadelphia for four years at $52.9 million per year, Isaiah Hartenstein to Oklahoma City for three years at $29 million per year with a team option in year three, and Tobias Harris to Detroit for two years at $26 million per year. Then came Myles Turner to Milwaukee in 2025 at $27.2 million per year for four seasons, and Walker Kessler to the Lakers in 2026 at $32.4 million per year for four seasons.
The pattern matters as much as the names. Brunson, George, Turner, and Kessler are the only ones on that list who got more than $25 million per year on deals with more than two guaranteed seasons. And if you raise the bar even higher, the market looks even thinner: George is the only free agent over the last five years to change teams and clear an average annual salary of at least $40 million.
That’s the backdrop for Towns. Even getting beyond $30 million on the open market has become difficult, and Walker Kessler only got there through a sign-and-trade with the Lakers.
None of that means Towns has no power. A single team can still change the market, and there could be as many as three teams willing to max him next summer. But it does mean the Knicks are not operating in a landscape where alternatives are plentiful.
This also doesn’t fully clean up how New York has handled the talks. The stench of a certain kazoo-playing, vibes-killing billionaire is all over this thing.
Still, if you strip away the pointless “ We’re tabling extension talks ” line, the Knicks may be approaching this the smart way. In today’s NBA, stars usually get where they want through trades and extensions, not by wandering into free agency and setting off a bidding war.
Cap space gets preserved for names that rarely hit the market. And when a player of Towns’ caliber does get there, the money and years he wants are usually not there waiting.
That’s why, in the end, this standoff may tilt New York’s way. Towns is more likely to give in to the Knicks than the Knicks are to give in to him.
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