No. 1 reason to remain optimistic about the Minnesota Timberwolves
Karl-Anthony Towns will make a major impact on the Timberwolves
It seems so simple, doesn’t it? Obviously adding the team’s best player back from injury will make a major difference.
But it’s more than that. Towns is genuinely a top-20 player in this league, and the Wolves’ entire roster was built around his skill set.
The Wolves are 2-2 with him in the lineup this year. The two losses are a game in which they led by double-figures in the fourth quarter and an overtime loss to San Antonio.
Last year, the Wolves dominated the LA Clippers in the first game post-trade deadline with Beasley on the floor with Towns. D’Angelo Russell returned from injury to play in just one game with Towns before KAT went down for the season with a wrist issue, and it was a hard-fought loss at Toronto.
Basically, the Wolves have been one of the league’s worst teams without Towns on the floor, and competitive (at worst) with him available.
Expand this to the overall view of organizational health and progress. Towns and Russell have shared the floor for five games in nearly a calendar year. Towns and Beasley haven’t played together much more frequently. How can we judge the job that Gersson Rosas has done assembling this roster, or even to some extent the coaching job of Ryan Saunders until we see the pieces come together and form the entire puzzle?
There’s reason to believe that a lineup with Towns, Russell, and Beasley, plus emerging young players such as Edwards, McDaniels, and Nowell, might be feisty enough to play .500 ball the rest of the season.
And that should be the kind of hope we can all get behind.