Minnesota Timberwolves: Best Player of the Year Award

The Best Player of the Year award for the Timberwolves should be an obvious choice. Indeed, the Dunking With Wolves team got together and voted unanimously in favor of Karl Anthony-Towns.

Let’s start by putting out there that this “award” is different from MVP of the team.

This is the best player award; MVP doesn’t necessarily have to be the best player on the team. For example, Kevin Durant might be the best player on the Warriors, but if Draymond Green is the most important piece to the team, Draymond would be the MVP.

Karl-Anthony Towns had an absolutely amazing season: he averaged 25.1 points and 12.3 rebounds per game while shooting 54.2 percent from the field and 36.7 percent from three as a 7′-0″ center in just his second season in the league. KAT also sat out a grand total of zero games this season.

It’s hard to believe that just a couple years ago, people weren’t sure if Towns should go first in the draft or not. Aren’t all Wolves fans happy that Towns was the pick instead of Jahlil Okafor?

Towns dominated games all season. Just think about having to guard him…one play, he’ll back you into the post and the next play, he’ll pop a three outside. And the best part is that he’s only getting better.

This was just his second year in the league. He was the youngest player in the history of the league to average 25+ points and 10+ rebounds in a game. He also became the first player to record 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 100 threes in one season.

A scary thought about Towns is that he reminds me in some ways of Shaquille O’Neal with a jump-shot. Think about when Shaq was young and on the Magic. He was an extremely big player that could still run the floor and had a quickness that no other center had.

Towns is similar to that. He is 7’-0” and 244 pounds, and that weight is only going to increase as he is only 21 years old. He moves quickly, is as explosive as a guard, and can hustle up the floor as fast as anyone.

So, Towns is very similar to Orlando Magic Shaq, except, oh yeah, Towns can shoot the ball. As a defender, you have to guard him closely from 25 feet out until you get to the basket.

The main area in which Towns needs to improve is defense. He rebounds well, which is definitely part of it, but he allows too many easy layups in the paint.

Towns (by far) had the best performance out of any Wolves player this season. I’m beyond excited to see how he improves in the future.

Next: Five Worst Games Of 2016-17 For The Timberwolves

He’s already one of the best players in the league and soon will take-off as one of the major superstars.