Mock Draft by Chad Ford has Wolves selecting Karl-Anthony Towns

For the next month or so, all NBA mock drafts need to be taken with many grains of salt, given that we don’t even know the order in which teams will be selecting. We won’t know what pick the Wolves will have until May 19, but we do know that they can’t fall below the fourth pick.

Minnesota has a 25% chance of landing the top pick, but their odds of falling to #4 are actually 35.7%. There is a 21.5% chance that they land at #2, and just a 17.8% chance that they end up picking third.

We are all well aware that the Wolves have never picked first overall in the draft. They do have the past two number-one picks on their roster now in Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett and are hoping to complete the trifecta. (I’m hoping that Anthony Bennett is traded away to undo said trifecta, but maybe that’s just me. It’s not? Okay, didn’t think so.)

ESPN’s Chad Ford has been releasing mock drafts for some time now with the draft slots populated by teams based on their odds heading into the lottery. Which means that the Wolves are slotted at #1, even though that would simply be too good to be true.

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Ford’s Mock Draft 4.0 from Monday (available only to ESPN Insiders) has the Wolves selecting University of Kentucky big man Karl-Anthony Towns with the first overall pick. I won’t recreate what he says about the selection, as a) it’s an Insider piece so I’m not going to copy and paste the content, and b) there are some pretty #hottakes in there from Ford. So read it if you have Insider, if not….that’s okay.

I agree with this pick, as Towns is easily the best prospect in a strong draft. He can play power forward and center, and would likely slot in next to 20 minutes or so of Nikola Pekovic quite nicely. The fit with Gorgui Dieng is a bit more tenuous as there are some redundant aspects in their respective games, but “fit” is something that is (or at least should be) significantly less important on a 16-win team versus a playoff squad.

The Wolves simply can’t plan on having Pekovic as he was previously constructed moving forward, but splitting 48 minutes at the center spot between he and Towns sounds great. Dieng could be trade bait, or they could work out a four-man rotation at PF and C with Pekovic, Towns, Dieng, and Kevin Garnett.

At any rate, Towns is a perfect fit. He has the ceiling of a transcendent player, and with Wiggins and a healthy Ricky Rubio the future of this team will be extremely bright. As the roster currently stands, there are far too many questions, not to mention overpaid young players like Anthony Bennett and Adreian Payne and the lack of a true backup point guard. But if the team has Wiggins, Rubio, and Towns to build around, spot-up shooters and bench players will be much easier to slot into the roster.

We’ll have plenty more draft coverage in the coming weeks. In the meantime, enjoy the playoffs, and (try to) envision the Wolves there. Someday…

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