CHARLESTON, S.C. — Karl-Anthony Towns officially became a Knick on Wednesday afternoon, but not before the All-NBA center missed three practices because the complicated megadeal required details ironed out for league approval.
The delay is hardly catastrophic, but Towns’ style requires adjustment from a team that hasn’t had a 3-point shooting center since Tom Thibodeau took over.
“I think it takes a little bit of time,” Josh Hart said Wednesday before the trade was official. “For me, I haven’t played with that many shooting bigs in my career so I’m looking forward to someone we can isolate on the post, make good decisions, put the ball in the basket.
“I’m going to tell him whenever I get a rebound and run, just trail to the 3-point line. I’m sure he’ll get some open 3s that way. It’s going to take some time just to get the feeling down. Obviously [Jalen Brunson], Mikal [Bridges], myself, we played together for a while. OG [Anunoby] played with [Brunson] and myself for a handful of games. It’s going to take a little bit and that’s what training camp and preseason are for — so we can hit the ground running on opening day.”
The Knicks open their preseason Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., but Thibodeau said he’d give the younger players more minutes in that contest — “usually you build up to your last preseason game where you get a truer read of what rotation looks like.”
The Knicks, according to Thibodeau, have spent training camp “putting in a new system on offense and defense.”
He said Towns’ absence through the sessions — two Tuesday, one Wednesday — changed the order of training camp operations.
Instead, they’re working on lineups other than the starters.
“Yes and no [it’s a problem]. Obviously you’d like to have everybody here, but reality is we don’t and what it does do is it gets us to look at different combinations a little earlier in camp, stuff we were planning on doing anyway,” the coach said. “So we get to those things first — so it’s going to invert the order a little bit. But we’ll get to everything eventually. We look at training camp basically as the whole month.”
Hart doesn’t see Towns being impacted much, however.
“I think he can still put the ball in the basket, so he’ll be alright,” Hart said.
As confirmed by Wednesday’s announcement, the Knicks acquired Towns in a three-team deal with the Timberwolves and Hornets for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, a protected first-round pick, two second-round picks and several salary fillers — Keita Bates-Diop, Charlie Brown Jr., DaQuan Jeffries and Duane Washington Jr.
“Karl-Anthony brings a skill set that is unique to the game of basketball,” Knicks president Leon Rose said in the statement. “He possesses a blend of playmaking, shooting, rebounding and defending that in combination with his size allows him to compete at a level that is rare in this league.”
Rose also thanked Randle, saying, “[He] played a major role in establishing the foundation and culture of our team.” Of DiVincenzo, he said, “[He] not only captivated the city with one of the most iconic shots in Knicks history, but also immediately bought in the culture we were building.”
The Towns trade and its aftermath left the Knicks with spots to fill in training camp, and the Knicks responded by adding another veteran, T.J. Warren, on a non-guaranteed deal, a source confirmed.
Warren, a 31-year-old forward, played in nine NBA seasons, including 11 games with the Timberwolves in 2024.
He was a budding scoring ace with the Pacers in 2019-20 — when Warren averaged 19.8 points, including 20 in the bubble playoffs, but suffered a foot injury and was never the same.
To facilitate the Towns trade, the Knicks waived two other players on non-guaranteed deals — Marcus Morris and Chuma Okeke.
They were both extended offers to return but Morris declined.
Shamet, who is also in camp on a non-guaranteed deal, is expected to make the final roster, as The Post reported when he signed on Sept. 14.
Counting Shamet, the Knicks have 12 roster spots filled. They can carry as many as 15 players or as little as 14 into the regular season.
