Karl-Anthony Towns Celebrated His NBA Championship by FaceTiming Anthony Edwards and It Was Beautiful
Karl-Anthony Towns won an NBA championship on Saturday night and the first person he wanted to share it with was Anthony Edwards.
Towns posted a photo to social media after the Knicks closed out the Spurs in Game 5. The image shows Towns on a FaceTime call with Edwards while holding the Larry O’Brien Trophy in his other hand. The caption was simple. “My brudda 4eva!”
That is the kind of moment that explains who Karl-Anthony Towns is as a teammate.
He spent nine years in Minnesota before the trade that sent him to New York at the start of last season. The Timberwolves drafted him first overall in 2015. Anthony Edwards joined him as the No. 1 overall pick in 2020. The two of them built a partnership that took Minnesota deeper into the playoffs than any Wolves team had been in two decades. They lost in the conference finals together. They were close personally. The trade hurt both of them.
Towns ended up in New York, and the basketball world wondered for months whether he could fit. He was joining a Knicks team that already had Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart. The question was whether his offensive game would mesh with Tom Thibodeau’s system. The answer turned out to be obvious by January. Towns was the missing piece. He stretched the floor for Brunson. He gave the Knicks a rim protector and a high-post passer. He was the reason New York had enough to beat anyone in the league.
And on the night he finally won a championship, he made sure Anthony Edwards knew the credit went both ways.
Towns elaborated postgame, saying that Edwards and his Minnesota teammates made him a better leader, a better player, and the man he is today. That is not standard locker room politeness. That is real gratitude for the years he spent in Minneapolis becoming the player who was ready to lead a real contender.
Edwards, for his part, has been a vocal supporter of the Knicks throughout the playoffs. He congratulated Towns publicly after every series win. The two of them have stayed close even after the trade, which is rare in this league. Most former teammates drift apart once the contract paperwork is signed. These two have not.
For Timberwolves fans, the moment is bittersweet. The Towns trade looks worse now. Minnesota got Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo and DiVincenzo had a quietly strong season, but neither of them is Karl-Anthony Towns. The Wolves missed the conference finals this year. Edwards is heading into a contract year with rumors about his future already swirling.
If you want to make Timberwolves fans cry, show them this FaceTime photo. Their best player is celebrating a championship with their second-best player on the phone, and neither of them is wearing Minnesota colors anymore.
For Towns, the night was about a ring he waited 11 years to win. For the rest of us, it was a reminder that the relationships players build during the grind of NBA careers can be the most lasting part of the whole thing.
The trophy is in New York. The brotherhood travels.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
