Karl-Anthony Towns Reacts to Mitchell Robinson Signing With Celtics: ‘I Don’t Know if I Can Even Look at Him’
Karl-Anthony Towns is taking the Mitchell Robinson news exactly the way you would if your friend signed with your biggest rival.
The Knicks star opened up to The New York Times about Robinson leaving New York for the Boston Celtics on a three-year, $47.4 million deal. Robinson had been Towns’ primary backup at center, a fan favorite in New York, and a locker room presence that both Towns and Jalen Brunson leaned on. Now he is going to be in a green uniform trying to beat them.
“I don’t even know if I could look at Mitch with a Celtics jersey on after everything,” Towns said. “So I’ll just have to start laughing at Mitch when we see each other.”
Then he added, with a shrug, that Robinson “owes me a pickup truck.”
You cannot script that better. That is exactly the kind of quote fans want from their star when a former teammate switches sides in a real rivalry. It is not petty and it is not cold, it is just honest. Towns is going to give Robinson a hug and then try to dunk on him for two hours.
The Knicks did not sit on their hands after Robinson bolted. They signed Andre Drummond to a one-year, $3.9 million contract to slot in as Towns’ new backup center. Drummond is not the same player he was in his Detroit heyday, but he can still rebound, he brings toughness, and at that price it is a completely fine bridge move.
The bigger picture is what makes this interesting. The Celtics adding Robinson gives them another defensive-minded body up front. New York’s championship window is now being tested by a rival that just plucked one of their most important role players. That is exactly how the Celtics have always done business, and it is exactly what makes losing him sting more than the numbers on the paper would suggest.
Towns is going to be fine. He is a top-tier scorer, he has an MVP-caliber running mate in Brunson, and the Knicks still have the deepest offensive rotation they have had in a decade. If anything, hearing him talk this openly about the situation is a healthy sign. He is not pretending nothing changed and he is not sulking about it.
The Celtics-Knicks matchups are going to feel different this season. Every possession where Robinson goes up for a putback dunk in green is going to trend on social media. Every time Towns hits a step-back three over his old friend, someone is going to bring up the pickup truck.
Rivalries need moments like this to feel alive. New York and Boston just got a bunch of them for free, courtesy of a signing that had almost no drama on the day it happened.
Now we wait for the first tip-off.
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.
