Karl-Anthony Towns Is Too Big To Fail

When Minnesota Timberwolves coach Sam Mitchell was asked about his team's propensity to give up second half leads, before a recent game against the Dallas Mavericks, he answered the question. And not just once, either. Mitchell repeated his response six times over the next five minutes.

"That's what young teams do. They don't know how to close teams out…. That's just what young teams do. I didn't invent it. That's just the way it is…. That's what young teams do. Instead of finding ways to win, sometimes they find ways to lose… That's what young teams do…"

A few hours later, Minnesota did the thing that young teams do, blowing a 10-point fourth quarter lead to a Dirk Nowitzki-less Mavericks team in overtime. The loss wasted a dominant performance by 20-year-old rookie Karl-Anthony Towns, who scored 27 points on 12-19 shooting to go along with 17 rebounds, three assists, and six blocks. Towns was the youngest player suited up for that game, and there was really no question that he was also best player on the court for either team.

Mitchell wasn't wrong. Young teams do these things, and his team is young. That said, duffing this sort of lead is also what bad teams do, and, right now, that's what Minnesota is. Towns' inexperience has very little to do with the Wolves' struggles; he handles himself like an extremely grown-up human on and off the court. The growing pains in Minnesota are different than those that have recurred through most youth movements in the NBA, though. This is because Towns might be the best basketball player in the world by the time he's 25 years old.

The term "once-in-a-generation player" can be correct until it is retroactively proven wrong. A movie trailer for Towns' career could begin with voiceover claiming, "From the man who brought you DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis…" This perspective isn't fair to Towns, not because it sets lofty expectations for him, but because he might actually be better than both of the name-dropped seven-foot auteurs before too long.

The only way Cousins, Davis, and Towns can all be once-in-a-generation players is if we accept the term as useless rhetoric, which it pretty much is. Generations are longer than six years and "once" doesn't happen three times and also who cares about this, really? Applying the label to Towns retroactively disproves it for Cousins and Davis. Even with all that said, Towns really might be a once-in-a-generation player because he can do even more than either of them; he is already a better rim protector than Cousins and better at defending big men than Davis. At 20, Towns can already do absolutely everything a player could be asked to do—he can run a fast break by himself and pass out of double teams and hit threes. There isn't a skill that he needs to discover. His development will have less to do with adding new facets to his game and more to do with perfecting the many things he's already good at.

When I asked Mitchell what made Towns such a productive scorer, he brought up balance. "I think Karl is unique in that he can score inside and out so when they put smaller guys on him he can take them in the paint and when he has bigger guys on him he can take them outside," Mitchell said. "I think that's rare. I remind him everyday, it's easy for him to settle for jump shots. Most big guys won't come out to him. I tell him all the time, 'don't bail people out. Give them your complete game.'"

That complete game is basically the entire game of basketball. In an interview with Britt Robson, Mitchell confidently claimed that the 7-foot Towns is the best shooter on the team. As a rookie he is shooting .389 from three-point range; for some context, Kyle Korver is shooting .364 from three this season. Towns is also much more conservative with his three-point shot selection than Davis or Cousins, who both added the shot to their game only recently and are shooting more per game at a lower percentage.

In the interview with Robson, Mitchell spent a lot of time harping on the bad habits and unlearned fundamentals that he claims another Minnesota youngster, Zach Lavine, can attribute to coming up in an AAU environment. Mitchell told me that there are no such concerns with Towns. "I tell his dad all the time, whoever worked with him did a great job. For a young guy, 20 years old, one year of college, to have a jump hook, right hand [or] left hand and has the post moves that he has and can step outside and shoot, it's rare."

Towns is scoring and rebounding at a higher rate than either Cousins or Davis did as rookies and he's shooting a higher percentage than both of them are this season. When Davis and Towns faced off on January 19th Davis put up 35 points, seven rebounds, and two blocks. Towns came right back at him, though, with 20 points, 13 rebounds, two assists, a steal, and a block. Rookies aren't supposed to be able to do this to Anthony Davis:

Six nights later Cousins may have had the finest game of his career, putting up a line of 56 points on 21-30 shooting, 12 rebounds, four assists, one steal, and two blocks in 46 minutes before fouling out in double overtime against the Hornets. On the same night, Towns quietly kept his team in the game against Cleveland with 26 points on 11-for-16 shooting, 11 rebounds, four assists, a steal, and a block. Boogie's night was more impressive obviously, but this is his sixth season. This was Towns' 46th game in the NBA. Cousins had four games of at least 25 points and 10 rebounds his rookie season. Towns already has eight. To put all this in another, more in-context way, Towns is the most polished rookie big man since Tim Duncan, and his skills are tailored to fit modern basketball.

The Wolves lose most of their games because they have a poorly constructed roster being carried by two 20-year-olds. They are badly in need of a shooter who can make it harder for defenses to double team Towns and Andrew Wiggins. Ironically, the player that would have been the perfect fit for this team was Kevin Love. Defensively, Towns and Wiggins could have protected Love, who has been a persistent defensive liability for Cleveland. On the other side of the ball, Love's shooting would have made life that much easier for Towns and Wiggins; Ricky Rubio would have been the perfect player to get everyone the ball.

It sounds crazy to say about a team 20 games under .500, but the addition of Love might have made the Wolves a playoff team this year and could have set them up to be a borderline championship contender over the next five seasons. The same might be said had they signed Wes Matthews, who could have allowed Wiggins to play small forward, a shift that would have turned the Wolves into a formidable defensive team.

That's not to say that the Wolves missed out. Their record is similar, but the Wolves are in a different situation than teams like Sacramento or New Orleans. Besides a few minor bad habits, the lack of playoff success for the Kings and Pelicans has nothing to do with Cousins or Davis, both of whom have previously been constrained by poor coaching and substandard teammates.

But, as bad as the Wolves are right now, it's a good bet that they will improve at a rate faster than any team in the league, simply because Towns is that much better than his peers. When you combine the development of Towns and Wiggins with the right additions to their roster—Minnesota could draft another lottery-grade player this year or deal the pick for a high value veteran—the Wolves are primed to make a drastic leap in just one offseason. LeBron's rookie year was the only time in his career that his team has finished below .500. In 15 years, we might be saying the same thing about Towns. That only seems like an unfair comparison if you haven't seen Karl-Anthony Towns play.