There was a lot of hype surrounding Karl-Anthony Towns before the draft. He eclipsed Jahlil Okafor to become the consensus No. 1 overall pick because he was considered to be the prototypical modern NBA big man. He was expected to become a franchise player, someone the Timberwolves could build around. Anything short of that would have been a disappointment.
Karl-Anthony Towns isn’t a star in the making. He’s a star right now
Towns is producing like a star in his first year in the league, which makes him one of the best rookies to join the league in a long time.
Towns hasn’t just lived up to those lofty expectations his first two months in the league, he’s exceeded them. He’s ahead of schedule in terms of his development and is putting up numbers as a rookie that only 15 other players in league history can match. It’s early, but Towns is not looking like a future star -- he’s already at that level.
During Wednesday's game against the Jazz his immense talent was on full display. Towns scored 25 points on 16 shots, pulled down 10 rebounds and logged two blocks. The numbers, as lofty as they are, fail to truly illustrate how good he was. He scored from inside and out, mixing in strong moves near the rim with silky perimeter jumpers.
That's the beauty of Towns' offensive game: he has power and finesse. A post brute like Okafor can punish opponents inside while Kristaps Porzingis' shot allows him to draw a big man outside. Towns is already able to do both, as his jump-shot extends to the three-point line and his post game, while not as refined as Okafor's, is already efficient. Not a lot of players have a shot chart like this one:
He can also pass out of the low and high posts and is a killer finisher in transition, ranking in the top 95th percentile in the league, according to SportVU tracking data. The No. 1 pick of the 2015 draft is a truly versatile offensive player who can share the court with any type of big man, which provides the Timberwolves with plenty of lineup flexibility.
Towns adjusting to the NBA on the offensive end is not surprising, considering the skills he flashed in college. His ability to make an immediate impact on the other end as a rookie, however, was not a given despite his physical gifts. Most young players are expected to find their bearings as scorers first, as the intricacies of NBA defenses are often too complex to grasp early on. Towns is the exception, as he’s already holding his own as a defensive anchor.
Towns is averaging two blocks per game and is using his length to alter many other shots. On field goals he contests at the rim, opponents only shoot 47 percent, the ninth best mark in the league. Opponents are targeting him in the post, as he is one of just five players to have defended 80 possessions in that situation, but Towns is holding his own. He allows a mediocre 46 percent on field goal attempts and causes turnovers on 14 percent of the post-ups he’s guarded, making him an overall solid post defender.
As impressive as he is as an interior presence, the biggest reason why he’s already an above average defensive player is because of his awareness when defending opponents in space.
Since Towns switches back and forth between power forward and center and the Timberwolves don’t always defend ball screens the same way, he’s asked to make reads and change the way he guards pick-and-rolls. Sometimes he has to sag back while others he needs to hedge or trap. The fact that he can do either separates him from a lot of big men, including some of the great ones.
Minnesota allows roughly the same amount of points per 100 possessions with Towns on the court as off but his individual performance is stellar not only for a player his age but for any center, period. The fact that he’s only scratching the surface of what he can do on that end suggests he could be a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate very soon.
The Timberwolves are two games away from the No. 8 seed and very much in the playoff picture, something that seemed out of the question at the start of the season. One of the big reasons why they are playing better than everyone expected them to is because Towns is not a typical rookie. He's already among the league's best big men, displaying the type of versatility on both ends that it has taken even gifted players like Anthony Davis years to achieve.
Karl-Anthony Towns is already a difference-maker, 32 games into his career. Unlike many one-and-done top picks, he really doesn’t need to develop additional skills to dominate. He just needs to be more consistent from game to game. If he can do that in 2016, he will end his rookie year at the doors of superstardom.
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