“You Supposed To Trade Rudy Gobert”: Kevin Garnett Calls Out Timberwolves For Karl-Anthony Towns Deal

Kevin Garnett played for three franchises during his 21-year NBA career. KG still holds two of those franchises close to his heart— the Boston Celtics and the Minnesota Timberwolves. He often speaks out about the two teams passionately. This time, The Big Ticket bantered with former teammate Paul Pierce on his podcast, KG Certified, about the massive mistake he believed the Wolves made in the offseason.

Karl-Anthony Towns has been the face of the Timberwolves ever since the franchise drafted him first overall in 2015. The Wolves made it back to the Western Conference Finals for the first time last year since KG took them there in 2004. With the team reaching that level of success, it was surprising to see the management break the core.

Garnett has still not moved on from the franchise-altering move that the Timberwolves and New York Knicks made back on September 27th.

“You know what I’m buggin’ about over? Man, why ain’t nobody talked about that KAT trade… How’d that get swept under the rug? We just gonna let that go? We just not gonna talk about why did you make that trade instead of trading Rudy Gobert?” Garnett interjected while talking about the Western Conference team.

Pierce responded that the trade was meant to help push both teams into contention, but Kevin Garnett disagreed.

“You supposed to trade Rudy Gobert, keep KAT, and go on. You took a step back, you didn’t wanna pay the man… Man, what we doin’? That s*** got swept all under the rug”, Garnett quickly responded.

To be fair, Towns has dominated as the Knicks’ newest star, seemingly providing exactly what the team needed to further contend in the Eastern Conference. The stretch-big has been consistently excellent for his new team, averaging over 26 points and 12 rebounds per game as New York clings on to a top-four seed.

On the other hand, it makes sense why the Timberwolves decided to keep Rudy Gobert over Towns. The Frenchman is a four-time Defensive Player of the Year and provides a defensive identity alongside the team’s offensive-minded star, Anthony Edwards. At the same time, they believed that by trading KAT, they would be able to pay Naz Ried and Nickeil Alexander-Walker. So far, the trade has not worked out as expected for the Wolves.

They’re on a four-game skid and are sitting as the 12th seed in the West. To make matters worse, ANT feels that the team can’t openly talk to each other anymore.

Anthony Edwards aired out his frustrations regarding Minnesota’s sluggish start

Gobert and Towns are both All-NBA talents, but currently, the Timberwolves move as Anthony Edwards does, and the fifth-year guard has apparently not been pleased with the team’s underwhelming start this season.

Edwards emphasized that the issues with the team are internal. The star guard relayed that the current roster hasn’t boasted the toughness expected from a championship contender.

“We soft as hell as a team, internally, not to the other team, but internally, we soft. We can’t talk to each other. Just a bunch of little kids. Just like we playing with a bunch of little kids. Everybody, the whole team. We just can’t talk to each other”, Edwards said.

If Minnesota can’t figure out how to build their chemistry and toughen up on the court, the franchise could be facing bigger problems—problems that may not have arisen if Towns were still with the franchise.