Karl-Anthony Towns helped the Knicks win a title, reinvented himself as a playmaking elbow force, and still got hit with an extension ask he calls unreasonable. That is the whole temperature check heading into camp.
Malika Andrews put the real number on it on NBA Today. Towns, from what she has been told, is willing to take a pay cut similar to what Jalen Brunson did. Numbers are not the same, but the openness is there. The cut the Knicks want? He views it as unreasonable.
He is not camping on the full four-year, $277 million max. He is already flashing flexibility. New York is the side drawing the hard line under James Dolan’s second-apron mandate, the same mandate that let Mitchell Robinson walk to Boston.
Championship Big Gets Treated Like Cap Furniture
Towns put up 20.1 points and 11.9 rebounds in the regular season, then flipped the script in the playoffs: 15.9 points, 10.6 boards, 4.9 assists on 55 percent shooting through a 16-3 run and a Finals win. He was either the second- or third-best Knick when the games tightened. The front office watched him elevate his defense against Victor Wembanyama and still opened talks like he was the problem instead of the piece.
Brunson already took less on his deal. Towns is signaling the same spirit. The fight is the size of the haircut, not the willingness to take one.
SNY’s Ian Begley had the discussion range starting between $45 million and $50 million a year. Stack that against the full max average on the four-year number and you get a real concession. Towns is due roughly $57 million this season with a player option around $61 million after that. He has the leverage to walk in free agency in 2027, or he can just pick up the option and get paid if this drags.
The league source soft-pedaled it to The Post: conversations have been cordial and positive, the Knicks want him long-term, and a deal not done now can still get done. That is standard FO weather. It does not change the fact they are asking a multi-time All-Star who just delivered a ring to subsidize the apron so everyone else fits.
Leon Rose’s Old Client Is Now the Puzzle Piece
Leon Rose once represented Towns. Now he is the president asking his former client to eat enough so Brunson’s next extension (eligible for up to four years and $257 million) and the rest of the core can breathe under Dolan’s line. Josh Hart and Miles McBride are extension-eligible too. Somebody has to give. Towns is the one sitting in the middle of the spreadsheet.
At media day he kept it clean. “I’ve made it known I wanna play here,” Towns said. “I’ve been a fan since I was young, so I would like to get one done, of course. That’s obvious I would like to get it done so I can step on the court and feel (as) comfortable as possible.” On the apron math he waved it off: “You ask me to give three facts or two facts about the second apron, I can’t do it. I have no interest in that. It is what it is. Leon trusts me with stuff on the court, and I trust him with that stuff.”
And the money line from last season still hangs: “Hell yeah, I want to stay here. Obviously get a chance to be home, see my family. It means more than the money.” Loyalty language. Fan-since-kid language. The honest one was simpler: “I think, in this situation, there is no comfortability to be had.”
I land with Towns. Hard. You do not win in June and then nickel-and-dime the big who became your playmaker and defensive riser when October rolls around. The second apron is real. Dolan’s mandate is real. Making Towns the primary eater after Robinson already got sacrificed is how a contender starts cooking its own core in public.
The counter-argument is fair on paper: the Knicks have time, Towns has a year left plus the option, and they can wait to see if the playoff version holds. Still the wrong read. Championship windows shrink when the owner prizes the apron line over the guy who just made the apron line matter.
ESPN already called a pre-camp deal unlikely. The story is hanging over Tarrytown whether anyone wants it to or not. Towns already offered the Brunson-shaped cut in spirit. Meet him inside a number that is not unreasonable, or watch the comfortability problem become a 2027 free-agency problem with a $61 million safety net still attached.
The $45-to-$50 million starting range is the actual fight. Not whether he stays. Whether New York remembers who just helped get them over the hump.
