Hours before the Miami Heat and the Milwaukee Bucks agreed on a blockbuster Giannis Antetokounmpo trade on Monday, the Minnesota Timberwolves raised eyebrows with a move of their own. The Timberwolves traded away Julius Randle in a three-team deal involving the Brooklyn Nets and the Chicago Bulls.
While a Randle trade wasn’t unexpected, the Timberwolves only got a second-round pick and Mouhamadou Gueye (who will be waived) for him. That’s not great, and their return for Karl-Anthony Towns is looking terrible now.
The Timberwolves had traded Towns to the New York Knicks in a three-team deal involving the Charlotte Hornets in 2024 for a package centered around Randle. With him gone, here is what Minnesota has now turned the six-time All-Star into.
– Donte DiVincenzo
– Joan Beringer
– No. 33 pick in 2026 NBA Draft
The Timberwolves had gotten Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, Keita Bates-Diop, and a future first-round pick for Towns. Bates-Diop would be waived weeks after that trade, so it was really just two players and a draft pick. That pick would be No. 17 in the 2025 NBA Draft, and the Timberwolves selected Joan Beringer with it.
Now, this wasn’t necessarily seen as a great haul at the time, but there was a good reason why the Timberwolves traded Towns. His four-year, $220 million extension was kicking in from the 2024-25 season, and they couldn’t keep him, Anthony Edwards, Naz Reid, and Jaden McDaniels in the apron era. They’d face crippling penalties for being a second-apron team if they did, so Towns had to go.
It would be Randle’s play that would end up determining how we looked at this trade from a basketball standpoint for the Timberwolves, and he was up and down. There were times he played like an All-Star and others when he greatly frustrated everyone watching him.
Notably, Randle was great in the first two rounds of the 2025 playoffs (23.9 points on 50.9% shooting from the field) as the Timberwolves made it to the Western Conference Finals. The same couldn’t be said this time around, though.
We saw the worst of Randle in the Western Conference Semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs in the 2026 playoffs. The 31-year-old averaged 12.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 0.7 steals per game against the Spurs, while shooting 34.2% from the field, as the Timberwolves lost in six.
A trade very much seemed on the cards after a display like that. We just didn’t know the Timberwolves would only get Gueye and the No. 33 pick for Randle. Just like with Towns, there was a reason for this.
The Timberwolves were freeing up cap space by basically salary dumping Randle. Not long after, NBA insider Shams Charania reported they had agreed to a five-year, $112 million deal with Ayo Dosunmu. So, there was method to this madness.
That doesn’t change the fact, though, that the biggest piece that the Timberwolves got in the Towns trade was turned into one second-round pick. That’s not ideal.
As for the rest, DiVincenzo did prove to be a very good addition, but he tore his Achilles tendon in the 2026 playoffs. The 29-year-old had averaged 12.2 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.3 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game in 2025-26, and you wonder if we’ll get to see the best of him when he returns.
Lastly, we get to Beringer, who put up 3.9 points, 2.3 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.2 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game as a rookie. The Frenchman showed flashes of brilliance, but no one can say for sure how good he is going to be.
If Beringer turns into a good starting-caliber player, then this return for Towns would look better. If he doesn’t, well, then it’ll look even more terrible.
Of course, what made matters worse here was that Towns helped the Knicks win the NBA championship in 2026. He became yet another Timberwolves star to leave the team and win it all.
