Minnesota Timberwolves Roundup: Towns suspended, Wolves pick-up Okogie’s option

In an eventful day off, the Minnesota Timberwolves learned of a suspension to their best player and picked up the option on a second-year guard.

On Thursday, Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns found out that he would be suspended for two games for his role in a scuffle with Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid in Wednesday night’s game.

Embiid was also suspended two games while no other players were fined or suspended, including the 76ers Ben Simmons, who had Towns in a headlock for an extended period of time during the scrum.

Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Wolves were contending that Simmons’ headlock was “dangerous”, but ultimately, there was no punishment for the Sixers’ All-Star guard.

You can read yours truly’s initial reaction to the altercation in our postgame player grades, but it sure looked like Embiid pushed Towns in the face and kind of set everything off. There was also the Embiid-on-Towns eye gouge, which evidently didn’t play into the NBA’s decision at all. (Just search “Embiid eye gouge” on Twitter…)

At any rate, the Wolves will be without Towns in Washington D.C. on Saturday night. They’ll likely still be favored to win, although the Wizards only fell to the Rockets by a point on Wednesday night.

Unfortunately, it also means that Towns will miss the home game against the Bucks on Monday, making Saturday’s game in Washington that much more important.

In other news, the Wolves picked up the third-year option on Josh Okogie just prior to the end-of-October deadline.

Josh Okogie was the No. 20 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft, and he’ll be a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves for at least one season after this one.

It was surely a no-brainer for the Wolves front office, as Okogie rivals Robert Covington as the team’s most consistent lockdown defender in one-on-one situations. It was Okogie who shutdown Kyrie Irving at the buzzer of his 50-point performance on opening night, and Okogie who often draws the assignments in isolation against opponent’s lead guards.

There’s still plenty of room to grow on offense for Okogie, but in terms of late first-round picks, Okogie is more than what most teams can hope for.

That said, the Wolves are banking on Okogie continuing to grow as a ball-handler and a shooter. And with his work ethic, it sure feels like he’s more likely to succeed than not.