Timberwolves End-of-Season Awards, Part Two

This is Part Two in a two-part series that hands out the Timberwolves End-of-Season Awards. Part One can be found here.

Defensive Player of the Year — Ricky Rubio

This award was nearly impossible to decide. Karl-Anthony Towns was a defensive force right from the beginning, a fact that was often overlooked because his offensive game was so polished. Rubio, on the other hand, had his defense often overlooked because of his limitation shooting the ball.

Diving into the statistics a bit, Towns was tenth in the league with 1.7 blocks per game. He also averaged 0.7 steals and had 2.8 defensive win shares, which is “an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player due to his defense,” according to Basketball-Reference.com.

Rubio averaged 2.1 steals, good for fifth in the league, and actually led the NBA with a 3.5 steal percentage,the percentage of opponent possessions that ended in a Rubio steal while he was on the court. Rubio also racked up 2.2 defensive win shares of his own.

Outside of the stats, both showed that they are great defenders. Towns’ instincts and intimidation helped him cover his teammates’ backs when they would get beat. His one-on-one post defense was also extremely solid for a rookie. He knew his opponent’s favored moves and could snuff those out, forcing a tough shot or a pass out.

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Rubio was able to keep top point guards from penetrating and warping the Timberwolves defense all season long. Both the offense and the defense were so much smoother with him on the floor; he’s not just a floor general on the offensive end. His leadership and energy on defense helps keep everyone rotating and in the correct spots.

Ricky and KAT could easily share this award, but this is where I’ll defer to a basketball mind much smarter than my own, Zach Lowe from ESPN.com. As previously mentioned, he just did his end-of-season awards and put Rubio on the All-Defense second team with this explanation:

"Point guards drive so much of NBA offense, and they are impossible to guard in the no-hand-check era. Having guys like [Chris] Paul and Rubio who can actually do that job is super-valuable. They stay attached to their opponent’s hip around screens, help and recover with perfect timing, and rip steals without gambling their way out of position. Rubio is huge, and takes charges; if you want him on the first team, I wouldn’t argue."

In an award race that’s almost too close to call, Lowe’s endorsement earns Rubio the edge over Towns.

Most Valuable Player — Karl-Anthony Towns

This is another extremely close race between Towns and Rubio. Both did so much for the team, and both in ways that can be measured and in ways that can’t.

In Towns’ case, he played in all 82 games and was just one of 13 players in the league to average a double-double. He led the Timberwolves in rebounds and blocks, with 10.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per contest. KAT was also second on the team with 18.3 points per game .

In addition, while he had a -1.6 +/- rating according to NBA.com, he led the Wolves with 8.3 win shares according to Basketball-Reference.

Rubio played in 76 games and was second in the league in steals while placing fifth in assists. He led the Wolves in both of those categories and, as discussed in the prior section, led the Wolves on both the offensive and defensive ends. Everything ran better with Rubio on the floor, and the contrast how the team played with Rubio on the floor versus off was oftentimes jarring.

Rubio was the only Timberwolves player with a positive +/- reading outside of Kevin Garnett, and also contributed 5.8 win shares.