Karl-Anthony Towns may have opened the 2026-27 season as the Knicks’ most valuable player, but that doesn’t automatically mean a monster payday is waiting for him somewhere else.
The case for a massive market is easy to make on the surface. Towns is bringing a versatile offensive game, and he’s also anchoring one of the league’s best defenses.
That kind of season usually turns extension talks into a staring contest. It has led to the belief that if he reaches free agency, some other team will go well beyond what New York is currently putting on the table.
That idea has already shown up in public discussion. James L. Edwards III of The Athletic and Sam Vecenie of the Game Theory podcast both said during a recent conversation that another team would be willing to give Towns more than $200 million over four years if he gets to the open market.
But the actual field of bidders looks a lot thinner than that.
If Towns turns down his $61 million player option next summer, a team can offer him as much as $264.9 million over four years. The Knicks, meanwhile, are reportedly sitting in the $45 million to $50 million per year range. That means the bar to beat New York is lower than the max, but the list of teams with both the money and the logic to do it is still shaky.
Keith Smith of Spotrac’s cap-space projections point to seven teams with a relatively clean path to that kind of spending power. Even that number is fluid, because cap space can disappear fast once teams start taking on money before the offseason. And several of the teams that technically could make a run at Towns don’t really make sense as landing spots.
The Atlanta Hawks are projected to have a little more than $40 million in room, but they would need to clear more money after moving on from CJ McCollum and Lu Dort to make a real offer work. They also have a roster full of expiring deals, which makes them a candidate to absorb salary at the trade deadline instead of splurging in free agency.
The Brooklyn Nets will have max cap space over the summer even if Julius Randle picks up his player option. Still, Towns isn’t going to Brooklyn if he wants to play competitive basketball before the decade is out.
The Chicago Bulls can get to KAT money if they decline or move off Norman Powell’s team option and make a few smaller cuts. They also have a glaring hole at center. But they’re in rebuild mode, and a $200 million-plus commitment to Towns doesn’t fit that timeline.
Golden State would need Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green to go before it could even enter the conversation. Even then, the Warriors would still need another smaller salary dump or two to top the Knicks’ current $50 million-per-year framework.
Yaxel Lendeborg looks like a possible star, but the rest of the picture is thin. Stephen Curry turns 39 this March, and Towns would have to be sold on Lendeborg and Brandin Podziemski.
The Warriors could also be knocked out of the picture entirely if they trade Kristaps Porzingis’ contract for a player with money on the books in 2027-28.
The Los Angeles Clippers might be desperate enough to go max or near-max after being docked five first-round picks for circumventing the salary cap. Players also tend to like Los Angeles.
But if Brandon Ingram and Darius Garland are both on the books, they’re not beating New York by much. And the fit question lingers: Would Towns really leave the Knicks to team up with Garland and Keaton Wagler?
Memphis could fall out of the running if it gives Ty Jerome a substantial raise on his player option. A Towns pursuit would also require the Grizzlies to move out of their rebuilding phase and decide Zach Edey is not their starting 5 of the future.
Milwaukee is another team that can be crossed off if it re-signs one or both of Tyler Herro and Jaime Jaquez Jr. Even if the Bucks kept their books open, they are so far from title contention that Towns’ interest would be hard to justify.
Strip away the wishful thinking, and the pool of teams that would actually hand Towns more than $200 million looks small. Among the clubs listed, the number of realistic bidders tops out at two, and it could be even fewer.
That matters because cap space and willingness are not the same thing. Teams may have the ability to make a huge offer, but they also have to worry about paying a seven-footer in his 30s a massive sum and living with the back end of that deal. Over the past five years, Paul George is the only free agent to switch teams while landing more than $40 million per year.
The Knicks, for their part, are treating the second apron like a real threat, but they are not acting like a team ready to lose Towns over it. They would move other players before letting that happen. And if they truly believed another club was ready to blow past their number, their own offer would almost certainly look different.
The fact that it doesn’t says something important: New York may not be convinced Towns has a much better payday waiting elsewhere.
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