Wolves Rudy Gobert – Karl-Anthony Towns duo: Job’s not done

There are far too many NBA pundits, analysts, talking heads, and fans who have decided far too early that the Minnesota Timberwolves’ attempt to combine the All-Star defensive might of center Rudy Gobert with the offensive might of Karl-Anthony Towns has failed. Kaput. Zilch. Null and void.

But I’ve lobbied the other side of the argument. After all, the amount of time that Towns and Gobert actually played on the same basketball court so far is pathetically small. In fact, it works out to just a bit more than one-third of a full NBA season.

Just a third.

That’s not very many games together. In fact, it’s not many at all, now that I think about it. So how can everyone who is weighing in on the matter be so sure that the Timberwolves have failed somehow? The truth is, they can’t.

Let’s rethink this and regroup

That’s like taste-testing a cake before the beaters even whip the batter. It’s like sharing how your day went after hitting the snooze alarm on the clock.

To sum it all up, when it comes to the Wolves Rudy Gobert – Karl-Anthony Towns duo: The job’s not done.

But there is time this season to regroup once more. The Timberwolves front office did not just stir up the roster at the beginning of the 2022-23 NBA season and then stand back to be surprised at the results.

The Timberwolves front office has not hit the pause button once and has continued to chip away at the team. It’s been a constant effort to reshape what the Timberwolves used to be, a team locked in NBA limbo, with a true and perennial NBA Playoff team.

Time to wait this one out

Hasteful management of an NBA roster almost always leads to trouble. Giving up on an NBA player too soon not only hurts a team’s chances in the here and now but is harmful to any future opportunities as NBA free agents steer clear of a team that does not have its act together.

Neither Rudy Gobert nor Karl-Anthony Towns had a particularly effective performance during the 2022-23 NBA season but for different reasons. For Gobert, he arrived at a new team only to find that the point guard, D’Angelo Russell, was not particularly interested in facilitating what Gobert did best.  Without an offense from Gobert, the Timberwolves’ strategy seemed a bit misdirected.

It was not until the team shed the unmotivated Russell, replacing him with a far more suited veteran point guard in Mike Conley Jr., that Gobert’s offense got back on track.

Towns never got on track in 2022-23

For Towns, the Timberwolves’ power forward suffered a serious illness in the offseason and had lost a lot of weight and durability before finally returning to the Timberwolves. When he finally suited up and played basketball, it was apparent that he would need time to recover his former self. But he never got the time, as he fell to injury early in the season and was out of the Timberwolves rotation for 53 games.

By the time he returned to the Timberwolves roster, he had just eight games to tune up and prepare for Round 1 of the NBA Playoffs. That was hardly enough time to get up to speed for the NBA regular season, let alone for the physicality and competitiveness of the post-season.

Why the Gobert-Towns sequel will be better

While the Minnesota Timberwolves did not get anywhere close to their money’s worth out of Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns last season, there are many reasons why their second season together will go far more smoothly.

For starters, Rudy Gobert knows the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the Minnesota Timberwolves know Rudy Gobert. 32 games may not be enough time to reach peak performance, but it is a far cry better than starting an NBA season scratching your head and trying to make introductions. And Gobert did come around at the end of the season. In fact, he was quite effective in the 2023 NBA Playoffs.

Conley can make a huge difference

Perhaps an even more critical improvement over last season is the fact that the Minnesota Timberwolves have Mike Conley Jr. at point guard for the entire 2023-24 NBA season. Last year, Russell clearly gave up on working with Gobert, opting instead to hog the basketball and play a high-volume number of shots in the hopes that some would fall.

Conley is a facilitator, just as dangerous from the perimeter at sinking treys, but more interested in distributing the basketball to keep his teammates engaged in the offense. And with less pressure to sink his shots, Conley clearly has a distinct advantage when flipping over to the defense. With Conly on the Timberwolves roster, this team is in a much better position to compete this season.

Towns’ durability dictates how far the Wolves will go in the 2024 NBA Playoffs

Because Karl-Anthony Towns’ availability has waned recently, we featured how his availability for the 2023-24 NBA season would affect the number of wins projected for the Minnesota Timberwolves this season. And yes, how many games Towns plays makes a huge difference for the Timberwolves season.

And why wouldn’t it? Would the Lakers be as successful with only 20 games out of LeBron James? Would the Boston Celtics be the same team with only 20 games out of Jaylen Brown? The answer is obviously no.

But somehow, that sane logic and reason are given a waiver when it comes to assessing the impact of losing Karl-Anthony Towns for two-thirds of the NBA season. I simply cannot buy into that way of thinking, and expect that a healthy KAT will be the icing on the Timberwolves cake this season.

If the Timberwolves win 50+ games this season, is the Gobert – Towns experiment still viewed as a failure? What if the Timberwolves advance to Round 2 of the 2024 NBA Playoffs? Is the only way to view the Gobert – Towns pairing as a success to witness the Timberwolves win the NBA Championship?

Time to wait this one out. The Timberwolves need to build positive momentum. There are plenty of young and talented players on the Timberwolves roster to help carry the load. For now, this team simply needs to get better.