Magic trade hypothetical lands Karl-Anthony Towns from Knicks

Knicks acquire: Jalen Suggs, Wendell Carter Jr., Jonathan Isaac, 2026 ORL second-round pick

Magic acquire: Karl-Anthony Towns, Guerschon Yabusele

Why the Magic do this trade

The Magic have well-documented cap issues; this cap crunch they’re about to face has even forced them not to pick up Jett Howard’s fourth-year team option. They stacked max contracts for the likes of Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs, and Desmond Bane, not leaving them much room for the rest of the roster.

There seems to be an overwhelming sense that the Magic are ripe for either a salary dump trade, particularly involving Jonathan Isaac, or a consolidation trade that packages some of their huge contracts moving forward to acquire one All-Star talent who complements the team’s core perfectly.

Towns, at the very least, would be a supercharged version of Carter for the Magic on offense. He is a much more proficient three-point sniper than Carter’s ever been, and the Magic have the rangy defenders to at least help compensate for Towns’ shortcomings on that end of the floor.

Carter’s contract extension is also kicking in next season, and he’ll be making around $18 million, $19 million, and $20 million for the next three seasons. That is fair money for a starting center of Carter’s caliber. But the Magic have to know that there is risk involved in that contract.

Carter has missed some time with injuries in the past, and trading him away at least helps mitigate some of the risk that comes with their investment in the 26-year-old big man.

Speaking of injuries, Jalen Suggs just never seems to be healthy for the Magic. He’s only played in 25 of Orlando’s 45 games, and he’s not been up to speed in recent games as he’s still dealing with the effects of a knee contusion. Suggs only has one fully healthy season under his belt, playing 75 games during the 2023-24 season, and last season in particular was rough, as he only played in 35 games.

With Anthony Black breaking out and set to receive a contract extension of his own soon, Suggs has become more expendable than ever. Now, when healthy, Suggs is one of the best defenders in the NBA. But that is a major caveat with a lot of ifs baked into it.

Losing a homegrown talent like Suggs can be rough. His contract is also front-loaded, which means that his contract becomes less expensive (and more valuable) as the years pass. But with Orlando being in win-now mode, they might be better off devoting that cap space of theirs to more of a sure thing.

Black’s emergence as a legitimate starter in the NBA should make letting go of Suggs that much easier for the Magic. The sixth overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft is averaging nearly 16 points per game to go along with four rebounds and four assists, and he’s not too shabby defensively as well.

Isaac is another injury-prone player on a huge contract, but even he hasn’t been playing that much lately for the Magic. His contract is swiftly turning into one of the worst in the NBA, and getting off of that deal should be a huge win as well for Orlando.

A starting lineup moving forward consisting of Black, Bane, Wagner, Banchero, and Towns would do so much damage, and they will still have Tyus Jones, Goga Bitadze, Moe Wagner, Noah Penda, Jase Richardson, and Tristan da Silva logging minutes off the bench with Guerschon Yabusele looming as a wild-card contributor.

Why the Knicks do this trade

A few NBA insiders are calling the Knicks the losing party of the Towns trade that required them to send Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Randle is a borderline All-Star player who’s been solid all season long, while DiVincenzo remains one of the best snipers in the NBA.

Trading Towns away for this Magic package allows New York to make the team more focused around Jalen Brunson and their talent on the wings. This gives them more of a defensive identity, and it’s not like they don’t have the pieces still to put up a top-10 offense even with Towns out of the picture.

Head coach Mike Brown can split up the minutes between Carter and Mitchell Robinson more evenly, and he will also have the option of sending Isaac out there against quicker and smaller units. Carter becomes the option for spacing the floor, while Robinson is coming in as the bruising option, with the two splitting time at the five similar to how the Toronto Raptors were using Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol back in 2019.

And then integrating Suggs should be very easy for Brown to do, and putting him in a reduced role should help him be fresh for when the games matter. Adding Suggs, an All-NBA-level defender, alongside Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby would wreak so much havoc against the opposition, and they’re also sufficient enough creators and scorers that the Knicks shouldn’t suffer too much of a drop-off on the offensive end.

Suggs could either start alongside Brunson and take on the quicker matchups, shielding his more offensively-inclined teammate from tougher matchups, or he could come off the bench and give way to Josh Hart against teams that need more size and strength to combat against.

Either way, Suggs gives the Knicks so much lineup flexibility, and he also addresses their need for a reliable backup/secondary point guard. And he’s only 24 years of age, and as mentioned earlier, his contract decreases in value over the next four seasons, making it easier for the Knicks to extend their contending window.

The risk of course is that Suggs, Carter, and Isaac all have injury histories. But playing on a stacked Knicks roster should theoretically make it easier for them to stay healthier. Taking on the huge Carter and Isaac contracts may not be very ideal for the Knicks, but gambling on Suggs’ upside under a team-friendly deal makes it very worth it. And on their own, those contracts should not be too difficult to dump anyway if push comes to shove.