Timberwolves: Karl-Anthony Towns is in the midst of an MVP season
The Minnesota Timberwolves season has been up-and-down through the first 17 games, but one consistent has been Karl-Anthony Towns. It’s early, but right now he’s playing at an MVP level.
This is a pivotal season for everyone a part of the Timberwolves organization.
This is Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore’s first season as owners, and you know they’re feeling pressure to turn things around. After Gersson Rosas was fired, Sachin Gupta took over as lead President of Basketball Operations for the first time in his career. He’s worthy of the position, but there’s still some uncertainty as to whether or not he will hold the position next year.
If the season goes south, the front office could potentially move on from Towns and D’Angelo Russell.
Chris Finch could even be fired if Rodriguez and Lore are unsatisfied with the job he’s done.
Towns, for good reason, has heard the rumblings that he’s an empty stats player. He’s only been to the playoffs once in his career, and a large part of that was because of Jimmy Butler. This is a crucial season for Towns, and it’s up to him to bring Timberwolves to the playoffs.
Through 17 games, the Kentucky Wildcat is having an MVP caliber season. Sure, the record doesn’t reflect that, but it’s hard to win when the rest of the team isn’t playing as well. Since the NBA changed the ball to Wilson, players are having a tough time adapting to the texture of the basketball.
Not Towns.
He’s firing on all cylinders, shooting 50.5 percent from the field, 45.4 from 3 and 84.0 from the line. He’s always flirted with 50-40-90 club, and if he improves his free throw shooting, he’ll become the 10th player in NBA history to do so.
Towns ranks eighth in the league in terms of 3-point efficiency, but most of the players ahead of him aren’t taking as many 3s per game.
Not only is he shooting at an efficient clip, but he’s also averaging 23.4 points per game, 9.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.1 blocks. He’s arguably playing the best defense of his career, and that’s always been the biggest knock on his game.
Finch needs to find a way to get Towns the ball more on offense because when your star player is making nearly 50 percent of his shots from anywhere on the floor, you give him the ball.
His rebounding needs to improve because he’s getting outhustled and outworked on the glass.
Towns also ranks ninth in win shares (2.6), 15th in offensive WS (1.7) and 12th in defensive WS (0.9). Seeing his name in the dWS category is an awesome development.
If the season ended today, Minnesota would finish 10th in the Western Conference. That’s good enough for the play-in game, but if they want to make this season a success, they’ll need to continue to win games behind Towns’ MVP campaign.
