Knicks Karl-Anthony Towns is feeling all the love in return to Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS — It was a winter wonderland lovefest for Karl-Anthony Towns. The center returned to snowy Minnesota with two planned video tributes Thursday night — one before the Knicks-Timberwolves tip-off, another during the game — as Towns gushed about the “warm feeling” of stepping back into the Target Center. “I was here nine years.That’s a long time.

I called this place home,” Towns said.“To be back here, to be able to sleep in my house one more time, it was really a nostalgic feeling.” Towns, who spent nine seasons with the Timberwolves after being drafted first overall in 2015, was appropriately greeted with 6 inches of snowfall but dismissed the idea that he’d have trouble commuting to morning shootaround. “That’s a New York question.

That’s not a Minnesotan question,” Towns said.“Come on.

I ain’t going to answer that one.” Towns, unlike former Knick Julius Randle, clearly carries no ill-will about his former team or being traded just a day before training camp.He was also enjoying the adulation on his big day, even tweeting out a highlight package of his Minnesota career. “I just wanted to be my best with whatever NBA jersey I put on, but I especially wanted to be my best here in a Timberwolves jersey,” Towns said while acknowledging Thursday was more than just another game.

“This place has given my family so much, not even from a financial aspect, but from a life aspect of the experiences we were able to have because of the organization and the things we were able to accomplish here.Those are things that you can never discredit, you can never lose love for.

I continue to see Minnesota as a home for me.” Towns’ new teammate Mikal Bridges could sort of relate after being traded from the Suns and returning to a video tribute last year.But he acknowledged Towns “has done way more [for Minnesota] than what I did with Phoenix, being the No.

1 pick and everything. “So I think it’s going to be a lot ...