By the time Karl-Anthony Towns agreed to his four-year supermax extension with the Timberwolves late Thursday night, the deal had become a formality for each side.
Towns' extension, which clocks in at an estimated $214 million and runs through 2028, is an example of how the modern NBA works, and how a star player takes on little risk of signing such a deal even if he might eventually want to find a way out of it.
The sheer numbers of a deal are going to make some fans balk. More than $50 million per year?