Karl-Anthony Towns' extension: what he's worth, and what fits under the second apron

Where It Stands

Towns has two years left on the supermax extension he signed with Minnesota in 2022: $57.1 million this season and a $61.0 million player option for 2027-28. Under the current CBA he can sign a four-year extension that would replace the option and start next season. The max is 35% of next season's projected $176 million cap with 8% raises, which works out to about $276 million.

The gap is real. Stefan Bondy of the New York Post reported on Oct. 5 that the Knicks offered about $200 million over four years. SNY's Ian Begley put their range at $45 to $50 million a year. The Athletic reported that Towns saw the offer as unreasonable and that the two sides are far enough apart for this to run into the season. Towns keeps saying the same thing: “I've made it known I want to play here.” ESPN's Brian Windhorst says he isn't demanding the max (“He's willing to take less than the $275 million”), and Tim MacMahon put the distance at eight figures a year.

Then there's the owner. In June, Dolan told WFAN: “There's certain things in the NBA that you have to be suicidal to do, and we're not gonna do those. One of them is called the second apron.” Everything below is measured against that line.

The Option Is the Leverage

Start with next season, because it changes how the whole negotiation reads. If nothing gets signed, Towns can pick up $61.0 million for 2027-28. If he signs the max, year one is about $61.6 million. That's a difference of roughly $585,000. On next year's books, the max barely costs the Knicks anything extra. It cuts the other way too: a deal that pays $50 million in 2027-28 asks Towns to take an $11 million pay cut next season in exchange for security later. That's why a flat $50 million a year is a hard sell, and why the real argument is about 2028-29 through 2030-31, his age-33 to age-35 seasons, where the max climbs to $66.5, $71.5 and $76.4 million.

The Knicks' structure hasn't been reported. ~$50M is the reported $200M spread evenly. Ages are as of Feb. 1 of each season.

What He Was Last Season

The volume came down. The efficiency didn't. He played 31.0 minutes a night, the fewest of his career, and scored 20.1 points, his lowest since his rookie year, while shooting 61.9% true shooting, 85.8% at the line and grabbing 11.9 rebounds. His blocks fell to 0.53 a game, a career low.

The impact numbers are good, not overwhelming. The Knicks outscored opponents by 7.0 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor and by 4.4 without him, and went 49-26 when he played and 4-3 when he didn't. The year before, the gap was much wider: +6.8 with him, -0.6 without. NBA.com's PIE, a player's share of everything that happens while he's on the floor, has him tied for 9th among 164 players with 1,500-plus minutes and 5th among the22 of them who average at least 9.5 rebounds per 36 minutes. PIE leans toward rebounders, so the fair read is that he was one of the five or six most productive big men in the league, not one of its ten best players.

Defense is still the soft spot. Opponents shot 60.8% at the rim against him, 28th of 65 players who defended at least 200 shots there (the median was 61.6%). Middle of the pack. Not a liability, and not a rim protector.

The Title Run, Round by Round

Round	PTS	REB	AST	TS%	+/-
First round vs ATL, 4-2	18.7	11.3	6.0	73.6	+92
East semis vs PHI, 4-0	15.5	8.0	7.5	74.7	+43
East finals vs CLE, 4-0	15.8	12.0	4.0	64.8	+79
Finals vs SAS, 4-1	13.0	10.6	2.4	59.4	+44

For three rounds, Towns was exactly what the Knicks needed. He scored less than in any playoff run since his first one in 2018 and passed more than he ever had: 5.9 assists a game through the first three rounds, with 10-assist games in Games 4 and 6 at Atlanta and Game 4 at Philadelphia. His 68.4% true shooting for the playoffs was the best of his career, and with him on the floor the Knicks outscored opponents by 23.6 points per 100 possessions. Without him they were +2.2. (Possession data covers 17 of the 19 games.)

The Finals were a different series. Victor Wembanyama guarded him on about 182 possessions and Towns shot 16 of 43 against him, 37.2%, with 9 turnovers. He committed 23 fouls in five games and fouled out of the Game 5 clincher with two points in 23 minutes. To be fair to him, the Knicks still won his Finals minutes by 44 points, and on the other end Wembanyama shot 9 of 17 with 8 turnovers when Towns was his man.

The honest summary: the title run proved Towns can be the center on a champion when the offense runs through Jalen Brunson. The Finals showed what happens when the other team has the one defender who can take him away.

How Much of the Shooting Travels

Some of the playoff efficiency will come back to earth, and it's worth being specific about which part. Before 2026, Towns had played 50 playoff games and shot 35.0% from three with 58.6% true shooting. This spring he made 26 of 57 threes (45.6%) and 70 of 77 free throws. At his old playoff rate he would have made about 20 of those threes. Six extra makes is 18 points over 19 games. Real, but not a new skill.

The passing is different. His best previous playoff run was 2.6 assists a game. This one was 4.9, and he did it while creating more of his own looks: about 48% of his playoff baskets were assisted, down from 62% in the regular season. That's the part of his game a contract should pay for, because it doesn't depend on a hot month from deep or on the legs he'll have less of at 34.

What the League Pays Big Men

Of the big men in this table, three will make more than Towns' option next season. Only one of them, Nikola Jokić, out-produced him and stayed healthy last year. Anthony Davis played 20 games and Joel Embiid 38. The next tier down, Evan Mobley and Bam Adebayo at $53.8 million, produced less than Towns did. On last season alone, the market says something north of $54 million is fair and the Knicks' number is light.

But nobody is signing last season. They're signing the next four.

The Age Bill

Towns turns 31 next month. A four-year extension covers his age-32 through age-35 seasons. Two recent max extensions for big men signed at 30 show how those years can go:

Davis was traded to Dallas in February 2025, about 18 months after agreeing to his. Neither case is a clean comparison, and Towns has his own short seasons (he played 35 games in 2019-20 and 29 in 2022-23), though he played 72 and 75 the last two years. But these are the deals front offices remember when they price the back end of a contract like this one.

Towns' own markers point two ways. The things that won him a ring (shooting touch, passing, 85.8% free throws) are the skills least tied to athleticism. The things that slipped last season (minutes, shot blocking) are the athletic ones. A smart contract pays for the first set and doesn't bet heavily on the second.

Dolan's Line, Season by Season

This season is already tight. With 13 guaranteed contracts and a 14th player at the minimum, New York sits less than $2 million under the second apron (public salary sources differ by about half a million on the bench contracts). With the roster they kept, there was no way to fit Mitchell Robinson's three-year, $47.4 million deal with Boston.

Next season lands right at the projected line with Towns' option and Josh Hart's team option on the books and the roster filled at the minimum. Depending on where the cap ends up, that's either fine or one small trim, like declining a team option. A max extension would add about $585,000 to that year. It isn't the problem.

2028-29 is. That's when Brunson's next contract can start (Fred Katz projects about $290 million over four years, which works out to roughly $64.7 million in year one), and it's the season OG Anunoby holds a $48.4 million player option. Brunson, Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Landry Shamet, Jose Alvarado and Mohamed Diawara alone come to about $166.0 million against a modeled second apron of about $248.6 million. What's left for Towns depends on Hart and on how the Knicks fill the bench: a veteran on a minimum deal counts about $2.75 million against the apron, a rookie on the minimum about $1.5 million.

Keep Hart at his current salary and Towns' number has to land between about $44 million and $51 million. That rules out the max and the $220 million proposal, and even the Knicks' reported number only fits with a young bench. Let Hart go and there's room for any of the proposals. The max is the exception: it fits only if Hart leaves and at least three bench spots go to rookie minimums.

Two things could loosen all of this. If the cap grows 7% that year instead of the 5% used here, every scenario gains about $3 million of room; at 10%, about $8 million. And if Brunson plays 2028-29 on his $43.3 million option instead of starting a new deal, that season gains about $21 million and the crunch moves to 2029-30.

So the real choice inside this negotiation isn't Towns against the apron. It's Towns' raise against Hart's next contract and the bench around them.

2028-29 model: a $185 million cap (5.1% growth, the figure Fred Katz's Brunson projection implies), aprons moving with the cap as the CBA requires, Brunson at about $64.7 million in year one, Anunoby opting in, and open roster spots at either the two-year minimum (about $2.75 million, what a veteran on a minimum deal counts against the apron) or the rookie minimum (about $1.5 million). Salaries are from Basketball-Reference; other public sources differ slightly on the Knicks' bench contracts, and bonuses and incentives aren't public, so they aren't included. The league has not projected 2028-29.

Player numbers are from the stat.space database (NBA box score, tracking, scoring and matchup data); on/off figures use NBA possession counts. PIE is NBA.com's Player Impact Estimate. Salaries are from Basketball-Reference as of Oct. 5, 2026. Contract and negotiation details are as reported below.

• Bleacher Report on Stefan Bondy's report (New York Post), Oct. 5, 2026
• SI: Ian Begley (SNY) on the Knicks' range, Sept. 24, 2026
• Newsweek on The Athletic's reporting, Oct. 2, 2026
• RealGM: Windhorst and MacMahon, ESPN Hoop Collective, Sept. 25, 2026
• theScore: Dolan on WFAN, June 2026
• NBA.com: 2026-27 salary cap and aprons, June 30, 2026
• RealGM: Fred Katz (The Athletic) on the 2027-28 projection, Sept. 13, 2026
• Yahoo Sports: Bryan Toporek on the Knicks' contracts, Oct. 1, 2026
• Yahoo Sports: Fred Katz's Brunson projection
• AP: Mitchell Robinson to Boston, July 2026
• theScore: second-apron rules explained
• CBS Sports: Anthony Davis extension, Aug. 2023
• AP: Joel Embiid extension, Sept. 2024
• Basketball-Reference: Knicks and league contracts, Oct. 5, 2026