A cornerstone of the Timberwolves’ franchise since he arrived in Minnesota in 2015, Karl-Anthony Towns is now a New York Knick.

Minnesota dealt the all-star big man to the Knicks on Friday in exchange for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick, a source confirmed. The Athletic was the first to report the move.

It’s a seismic roster shift taking place just three days before the Timberwolves host media day Monday to officially open training camp. A team with championship aspirations has decided to sap some of its existing continuity in the name of increasing flexibility both with its current roster and ones in years to come.

Towns has long been coveted by New York, who will reunite the big man with Tom Thibodeau, who coached him for two-plus seasons with the Wolves. Minnesota also gets a player its sought out for some time in DiVincenzo.

Minnesota aims to build a sustainable winner that can prosper throughout the Anthony Edwards era. The superstar just turned 23 years old. Towns is a highly productive player whose market value was as the max player Minnesota paid him to be, but the contract — along with the current deals of Edwards, Rudy Gober and Jaden McDaniels — was going to make fielding depth in future years an issue.

Minnesota loses shooting — which it desperately needs — with Towns off to New York. But in DiVincenzo, Minnesota adds another 40 percent 3-point shooter who’s comfortable playing off the ball and defending multiple positions.

Randle’s fit will be interesting alongside Gobert, if he is indeed a Day 1 starter in Minnesota. That would be a continuation of sorts of Minnesota’s big-ball experiment. The all-star forward isn’t exactly an efficient long-range shooter, which could make the offensive fit even clunkier than it at times was with Towns. But, like Towns, Randle is a productive player. And should he need more time to recover from the shoulder injury that ended his 2023-24 campaign, the Wolves have the front-court depth to allow for that.

It’s notable that Towns missed more than a month of action late last season with a torn meniscus, and the Wolves went 11-6 in that span — a 53-win pace.

And the contracts of Gobert and Randle — as currently constructed — will now come off the books no later than the 2026 offseason. That could be a major summer for Minnesota. The first-round pick Minnesota acquired from the Knicks is via Detroit. It has cascading protections, and could well cash in the 2026 NBA Draft. So that offseason could feature a valuable draft pick, as well as more financial flexibility.

The transitional phase between Minnesota’s current state of title contention and the next window could prove rather seamless. That’s critical for a team that traded away so many assets to acquire Gobert two summers ago.

But it certainly comes with a cost. Towns is an all-star right now. He’s been a stabilizing presence in the face of constant change in Minnesota for nearly a decade. He embraced Edwards as the team’s star and was willing to step aside when necessary to aide in the young guard’s ascension. That was all on top of his work championing a number of key causes in the community.

Those aren’t the types of players — and people — franchises like Minnesota often let get away. But the Wolves have proven to be nothing if not willing risktakers, who believe this roll of the dice won’t hinder success in the present, and could help extend it well into the future.

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