2. Karl-Anthony Towns (3)
Season stats: 35.7 MPG – 20.5 PPG – 11.6 RPG – 1.4 BPG – 52% FG – 38.3% 3PT – 83.2% FT
Weekly stats: 40.9 MPG – 23.3 PPG – 12.0 RPG – 2.3 BPG – 45.3% FG – 42.9% 3PT – 74.3% FT
After dropping to a season-low third in the last instalment of the power rankings, Karl-Anthony Towns was back with a vengeance in the last seven days of Wolves ball. Dominating on both ends this time around.
Towns started the week with a marquee match-up against the process that is Joel Embiid, and despite his struggles on offense (19 points on 6-16 shooting) KAT more than held his own in the hustle areas, finishing with 16 rebounds, 3 blocks and 4 steals.
Two of those blocks on the 7-foot-2 Embiid, who he dominated when given the chance.
Wolves didn't use Towns on Embiid enough defensively last night. He are KAT defending. Embiid 1 made basket pic.twitter.com/GfOTWw8yMU
— StreetHistory Videos (@streethistory) December 13, 2017
The 7-foot Kentucky product used the next two games to get the offense cranking, posting 30 and 28 points respectively in the Sacramento and Phoenix games, but the defense didn’t lag behind.
Towns swatted 5 shots against the Kings and swiped 2 balls away against Phoenix, all while slowly becoming more aware and physically able on defense under Taj Gibson and Jimmy Butler’s tutelage.
Slowly but surely Towns is rounding out his game. Along with the defense, the big man has started upping his assist levels to more than reasonable standards.
KAT posted 4 or more assists in three of the four games this power rankings week, with the highlight being his 5 assist performance against a helpless Willie Cauley-Stein and the Kings.
Karl-Anthony Towns is rising again in the rankings, and he certainly looked like a number one type player this week, except he has an immovable object in his road for that title.