Karl-Anthony Towns gets delusional on Patrick Beverley’s podcast

There has never been a time where NBA players have been more engrained in basketball media than right now. Players like Draymond Green and Paul George host prominent podcasts and analyze the game while bringing their playing knowledge with them, making for extremely compelling content.

One former Minnesota Timberwolves player also hosts a podcast. Partnered with Barstool Sports, Patrick Beverley hosts “The Pat Bev Podcast” and brings his own unique experiences and opinions to the media sphere. This week, he brought on Karl-Anthony Towns as a guest.

The two talked about Towns’ future in Minnesota. KAT essentially gave Timberwolves fans a non-answer about whether he will be with the franchise long-term, saying that the trade rumors are “as true or as false as Minnesota makes them to be.”

It was understandable for Towns to dodge questions about trade rumors, since it would not be wise to divulge any information about ongoing matters with the team. But the moment that really caused fans to raise an eyebrow came when the duo discussed the Denver Nuggets’ championship, with KAT making a rather far-fetched comparison.

Karl-Anthony Towns’ take on the Nuggets was a bit delusional.

The topic of the Nuggets and their championship came up on the podcast when Towns and Beverley were discussing the high sense of camaraderie they both experienced while playing for the Timberwolves. They both expressed a belief that there was a certain degree of enjoyment of playing with teammates in Minnesota that does not necessarily exist everywhere else in the NBA.

Beverley then connected this to Denver and said that he believes the Nuggets’ togetherness contributed toward them winning the Finals in a major way. A very reasonable take, considering their two best players, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, have played together there for the last seven years.

Karl-Anthony Towns agreed with Beverley’s comment, but took it a step further. Referring to the 2022-23 Timberwolves, Towns said “it was more special what we did in Minnesota, because we had like a month and then we had training camp. It was like ‘you better figure it all out right now,’ and we really figured it out.”

It is easy to misunderstand what Towns is saying here. He is essentially stating that he believes the Timberwolves’ chemistry this past season was up to par with the Nuggets, despite them having far fewer time to acclimate to each other.

Towns is well within his right to be confident in his team, but a statement like this is always going to come off as delusional when one team won a championship while the other lost in the first round of the playoffs. The feeling of brotherhood in Minnesota’s locker room may have been at an all-time high last season, and fans deserve to be excited about that. But making any kind of comparison to a championship team at this point in time just feels tone deaf.