Karl Anthony Towns takes a licking. Will he keep on ticking?

Karl-Anthony Towns is the face and future of the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise. But ESPN Senior Writer Ramona Shelburne reports that, per sources, he has undergone stem cell treatment, and platelet-rich plasma injections after the team’s season ended. Huh?  When did that happen, and why?

Well, I’m actually a bit familiar with this type of medical outpatient procedure. Let me try to break it down for you. The Minnesota Timberwolves star center is suffering pain from soft tissue damage and is opting for a non-surgical route to health those injuries and reduce, or eliminate, the pain that has developed.

Professional athletes subject their bodies to significant wear and tear. That has been offset in some of the more physical contact sports like professional football by protective equipment, but in professional basketball, that is not the case. The NBA is designed to be a non-contact sport (well, in theory at least). But even without contact, the sudden stops and starts, pivots, jumps and full contact on landing deliver tremendous torque and force to soft tissues that were never designed to be subjected to such stress.

Dinged up KAT

Per the ESPN article, it appears as though Towns has been experiencing pain in both knees, suffered a cyst in his left ankle, a subluxated (dislocated) left wrist with some ligament damage, and an aggravated joint located at the middle finger of his shooting hand.  While that all sounds like enough to send the guy to the emergency room, keep in mind that he was able to play through all injuries.

While we do not yet have any confirmation on the diagnosis of the specific injuries, the option of KAT to choose a path of non-surgical intervention suggests that the injury is minor in nature. Perhaps a partial tear, some minor damage that has resulted in elevated pain and tenderness at the injury site.  So what caused this sudden breakdown of the Timberwolves’ star’s limbs and joints?