Every season the draft brings a fresh infusion of talent to the NBA. In theory this is an even, steady process. In practice, hindsight and historical perspective show that there are borders and boundaries — talent doesn’t just arrive in the NBA, it arrives in generational waves. Sometimes we can’t see these aesthetic dividing lines for decades, sometimes you simply can’t miss them.
The present day NBA appears to be on the cusp of welcoming a remarkable new generation to its forefront — players who are not just incredible but incredibly unique. Players who will not just excel but transform the roles and responsibilities of basketball players as we understand them. Over the course of this week, The Step Back will be examining many of the players who could figure prominently in The Next Generation. Not every player we turn our attention to is destined to be a star, but all could play a role in defining the future of the NBA. Read the whole series here.
The Next Generation: Karl-Anthony Towns
Back in October, just before the start of the NBA season, the annual NBA General Manager’s Survey picked Karl-Anthony Towns as the player of the future. This put him ahead of players like Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant and LeBron James. He did not win the vote overwhelmingly like Davis did the previous year, but he got almost 50 percent from the vote.
To be fair, this was for good reason. Towns’ rookie season was revelatory. He was unanimously picked as the Rookie of the Year and cemented himself as the Timberwolves’ centerpiece. In a rookie class that featured Kristaps Porzingis, Nikola Jokic and Myles Turner, separating himself from the pack to that degree was no small thing. After last season, praise was heaped upon Towns and all of it was deserved.
What he did in his first year was historically impressive. Per 100 possessions, Towns averaged 28.8 points, 16.5 rebounds and 2.7 blocks. The only other players to ever do that as a rookies were Shaquille O’Neal and Tim Duncan. Add in Towns’ 3.1 assists per 100 possessions and O’Neal falls out of the group. Throw in Towns’ 1.1 steals per 100 possessions and Duncan is eliminated. (h/t Zach Harper). This is the very definition of a unicorn.
Towns’ rookie year was also a major reason why most everyone was excited for Minnesota this season. In Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Zach LaVine, the Timberwolves had their core. Add in Tom Thibodeau as coach and there seemed to be a recipe for Minnesota to get good and do it fast. It’s why some projected 50 wins and an All-Star appearance for Towns.
That hasn’t happened. As of Tuesday, Minnesota is 25-37, 3.5 games out of the West’s eighth seed. All year, the team has struggled to play complete games. Per FiveThirtyEight, the team currently has a whopping seven percent chance of making the playoffs. Minnesota’s also falls in the league’s bottom third per nba.com/stats and the defense is just above average. In short: The Timberwolves have been largely disappointing.
Maybe, though, this should have been expected. There are a few things — the Earth being round, LeBron James being an MVP candidate, taxes — that are constant. Young NBA teams struggling on defense and to find an identity falls under this category. Per RealGM, the Timberwolves are the fourth youngest team in the NBA.
Towns didn’t make the All-Star team either, but that says more about how many good frontcourt players there are in the West than it does about him at age 21. Were Towns to make it, it would have bumped somebody off who was just as, if not more deserving. There’s no shame in missing when it says more about everyone else than it does about you.
Towns has improved this year, too. On defense, he’s still figuring out the nuances and is adjusting to a scheme far more intricate than the one he played in last year under Sam Mitchell. Which is fine, because Towns is 21 and in his second year. Offensively, he’s progressed towards true unicorn status. His scoring per game is up, as are his assists. He’s rebounding at a higher rate as well. And from behind the arc, he’s percentage has gone up even as his per game attempts have nearly tripled. Any way you can measure improvement, Towns has made it and his future as one of the league’s best players on a team with other standouts hasn’t really changed.
Why, though, does it feel like Towns is forgotten by some? The obvious answer is that the Timberwolves’ struggles in a year they were expected to be good puts a negative shadow over his season. And when people talk about the Wolves, there is much more on attention put on Wiggins and if he’s actually good or not. (Hint: He is, even if he hasn’t quite developed as expected.) LaVine’s ACL tear and how it impacts his growth has drawn attention too. Plus, talking about expected improvement can be boring. What is there to say when Towns performs as he was expected to?
Towns, too has been lumped in with a growing class of unique players. With the Nuggets, Nikola Jokic has been whipping work since becoming a full-time starter and Denver has had one of the league’s best offenses during that stretch. The Nuggets, too, are one of the team’s most likely to win the No. 8 seed and then be slaughtered by the Warriors in the first round. With the Knicks, Porzingis is the bright spot on a team that has had almost everything go wrong aside from his development. Plus, he plays in New York. Turner, on a wonky Pacers team, is the best reason for Paul George to stick around.
Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins, the original unicorns, are now a duo with the Pelicans and are struggling to make their partnership work. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant and doing unique things in their owns ways that are newer than what Towns has done. Towns, again, has been what he expected.
How do we write, talk, and tweet about something we expected? By and large, we don’t. We just watch it happen. And Towns, with his polished inside-outside game, defensive upside and passing, might have the highest potential of anyone else in his age bracket. Ultimately, the 48.3 percent of GMs to pick him as the player they’d start a franchise with were probably correct to do so considering how good he is and how much better he’ll get over the next 10-plus years.
So what comes next for Towns? When thinking about that, I come back to this one quote from Zach Harper’s longform feature on him and how he embodies Flip Saunders’ vision for the Timberwolves.
“I’ve lived my whole life with a sense that I wasn’t good enough,” Towns told Harper back in April of last year. “Every day I work out, even today, it feels like there’s something I’ve got to prove to somebody. When I work out and I practice, I work out desperate. If I don’t do well in this workout, I won’t be playing in the NBA no more. I won’t be playing this game of basketball no more.”
What’s next for Towns is really what we’ve expected: greatness.