The Minnesota Timberwolves are going through a roller coaster of a season. After a pitiful 5-8 start, they rattled off five wins in a row, but fell back to their old ways and have now lost five of their last eight.
Sitting at 11th in the Western Conference and on the outside of the playoff picture looking in, Minnesota will need to gain some serious ground in short order for this season to be fixed. Of course, their personnel limitations will play a major part in whether that happens or not.
With Karl-Anthony Towns going down with a calf injury in Washington two weeks ago, the Timberwolves will be without one of their most crucial players for a large stretch of the middle of the season heading into January. During that time, Minnesota will have to evaluate their performance as a team and determine where they see Towns fitting into their long-term plans.
If the team fares well, and Chris Finch and his staff seem to have an effective system in place sans Towns, the organization will have to consider the possibility of trading their star big man. If they were to do that, it would not be possible until after the season is over, seeing as Towns just signed a supermax extension last summer.
But if the Timberwolves do begin making plans to deal Towns once the season is over, they should not be willing to part with him for just anyone. Here are the only two players the Timberwolves should realistically consider for Karl-Anthony Towns’ replacement.