Minnesota Timberwolves: The floor and ceiling of Karl-Anthony Towns

The Minnesota Timberwolves’ Karl-Anthony Towns has arguably been the most criticized 23-year-old All-Star in NBA history.

That header may seem like a gross overstatement to a lot of readers, especially coming from a Minnesota Timberwolves‘ blog boy.

However, the amount of players, fans, and NBA analysts that have attempted to frame Karl-Anthony Towns as a follower and overrated is incredibly upsetting.

KAT is playing in his 4th NBA season, and has never missed a minute of playing time as the starting big man for the Minnesota Timberwolves (270 straight games). And while that may seem like enough time to really get a grasp of how talented Towns is as a player, he still has his extreme doubters that are waiting at every turn to shun him from NBA stardom.

A lot of his criticism haunted Towns after his more recent quotes on his “leadership” role:

"Via, Dime Magazine (UPROXX) “On Sunday, Karl-Anthony Towns took issue with the idea that, with Butler gone, he had to become the team’s leader.” Towns – “First of all, I’m not one of the most important [players on the team],’’ he said. “I’m just a piece on this team. Everyone is just as important as the next. So if everyone’s doing their job and everyone is working hard, doing the little things, we make a great product. That’s first. And second, we just have to come together. We’re not doing well on defense so far this year, and we have to clean that up.’’"

I’ve stated this several times about the Wolves’ this season, but they need to start building a new foundation now that Jimmy Butler is off the team. And that foundation may just be as simple as, ‘knowing your role.’

Essentially what that means is if everyone does their job, then the Wolves will indeed make a great product. as Towns’ states. Karl-Anthony Towns is telling his teammates that they need to figure out their roles and not forget those roles to be a great team, and hopefully getting them past the first round in the Western playoffs.

Is he wrong?

We need to stop painting Towns as a “follower” or “soft” because he doesn’t want to be a player like Jimmy Butler. If Towns wants to be more of a Tim Duncan-like superstar, then I’m all for it.

But that does beg the question: If Towns wants to create a great product with a lot of pieces doing their jobs, how good can Towns be to get the Wolves’ over the hump? What’s his floor and what’s his ceiling?

These are the questions that the Twin Cities will be asking themselves for the next few years, and I hope we can try and dissect that here.

It’s important to note that none of these players played quite like the unicorn that Towns’ is, but they all had similar career trajectories as big men.