The elephant in the room ...

[walk with me]

So far in this season teague has been a target, Thibs has been a target, jimmy has been a target, WIggins has been a target, in previous seasons Zach or Ricky have been targets......


So...


When are we going to talk about Karl Anthony towns? We all know how his 1-1 defense is below average. But can we address some of the other problems? His crying to the refs, his lazy closeouts, his mental lapses, his blown/late rotations and how it’s negaticely effecting the team? Imagine busting your ass on defense and Kat makes some crazy block attempt which leads to an open rebound, lay up, open 3. Am I the only person seeing this? Am I over reacting? I feel like people don’t want to address this because it’s the families favorite child but what I saw tonight at target center made perfect sense of any 4th quarter issues or why jimmy/taj randomly try to play hero ball. Dudes get sick of Kat playing selfishly or stupidly.

[BadWolf]

how can it be an elephant in the room if it's talked about all the time on the net?

[Crazy-Canuck]

Kat is still a talent regardless. He isn't getting traded.

He's an emotional guy and it affects his play in a negative way. He just needs to control it or harness it into a competitive drive.

Wiggins doesn't show enough emotion which is good and bad. He won't spaz out the way Kat will, but he also won't consistently show that hunger on the court.

Both guys are still young and learning.

[LesGrossman]

Kat is still a talent regardless. He isn't getting traded.

He's an emotional guy and it affects his play in a negative way. He just needs to control it or harness it into a competitive drive.

Wiggins doesn't show enough emotion which is good and bad. He won't spaz out the way Kat will, but he also won't consistently show that hunger on the court.

Both guys are still young and learning.

Please. I cant hear that "age" nonsense any more. Look around the league, there are far younger guys around who do WAY more on D. The issue here is not inexperience, lack of strength or confidence; those things can be solved by experience and "age". Its simple, he isnt interested in defending and that is not at all related to age. Experience shows that this brand of player rarely changes this attitude (see K. Love, see Crawford, Nash and so on and on). THis is an offensively oriented player and that is what he will remain. His third season you cant excuse it with age or experience any more imho.

[walk with me]

If there wasn't as big of an age gap, I would've almost considered discussing the feasibility of a Towns for M. Gasol swap. I highly doubt he'll be traded, and I don't really want to trade him, but if we can get fair-ish value for him it'd be something to consider.

It’s almost impossible to come up with a scenario where you can break even trading Kat because his perceived roof is so high. You’d have to trade him for KD/bron/Kawhi/Giannis/porzingas or something. Not suggesting a trade is an answer either , just in a hypothetical scenario. Imagine if we had Demarcus cousins instead of Kat for a second lol.

how can it be an elephant in the room if it's talked about all the time on the net?

Is it talked about though? We all know his 1-1 defense is an issue. People hardly talk about his team defense and how it ruins the trust of the team. So far all this season I’ve heard fire Thibs, trade Teague, jimmy is a disappointment, Wiggins will never be worth the max, we shouldn’t have signed taj, the bench sucks. Everyone gets blame but Kat.

Wiggins doesn't show enough emotion which is good and bad. He won't spaz out the way Kat will, but he also won't consistently show that hunger on the court.

I don’t agree because Wiggins actually does show hunger on the court, just not with emotion. Last night alone I can think of 2-3 possessions where Wiggins shot a stupid shot or had a turnover but came down and stole the ball back or got a timely block. Wiggins is 100% putting fourth effort on defense. He’s far from perfect but he’s really trying and he doesn’t sacrifice his team effort for individual stats which is what Kat has a bad habit of.

[_AIJ_]

KAT is a bitch. He shoud just stop complaining man and just play basketball


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[LordBaldric]

This squad has not impressed in the least. It was always obvious that Wiggins might not pan out, but Towns? Man, KAT is disappointing me big time and that's a real kick to nads.

Also Thibs doesn't seem to be any better than Random Coach X at this point. Maybe he's overrated like Pringles was, who needed Steve Nash to make his offense go, except Thibs needs someone like Joakim Noah to make his defense go.

[walk with me]

This squad has not impressed in the least. It was always obvious that Wiggins might not pan out, but Towns? Man, KAT is disappointing me big time and that's a real kick to nads.

Also Thibs doesn't seem to be any better than Random Coach X at this point. Maybe he's overrated like Pringles was, who needed Steve Nash to make his offense go, except Thibs needs someone like Joakim Noah to make his defense go.

Kat will be a beast but he needs a “big 3” scenario so guys far greater than him cover up his weaknesses.. an example of a big 3 I’m talking about is like. Russell Westbrook, Kawhi and Kat. Thibs hasn’t been perfect but thibs mistakes are amplified by Kat when he is a gaping hole on defense and a stat chaser on offense. If Kat just played solid defense and didn’t have so many mental break downs. We’d habe 2-3 more wins instead of 2-3 more losses.

[LordBaldric]

This squad has not impressed in the least. It was always obvious that Wiggins might not pan out, but Towns? Man, KAT is disappointing me big time and that's a real kick to nads.

Also Thibs doesn't seem to be any better than Random Coach X at this point. Maybe he's overrated like Pringles was, who needed Steve Nash to make his offense go, except Thibs needs someone like Joakim Noah to make his defense go.

Kat will be a beast but he needs a “big 3” scenario so guys far greater than him cover up his weaknesses.. an example of a big 3 I’m talking about is like. Russell Westbrook, Kawhi and Kat. Thibs hasn’t been perfect but thibs mistakes are amplified by Kat when he is a gaping hole on defense and a stat chaser on offense. If Kat just played solid defense and didn’t have so many mental break downs. We’d habe 2-3 more wins instead of 2-3 more losses.

I've always felt it's almost impossible to hide a weak defensive big. It'd be fine for a bench player, but a starting big should be covering up for the defensive weakness of OTHER guys on the team, not the reverse.

Can't we just put KG in a time machine and have him back on the team as a 22 year old?

[Killboard]

The true elephant in the room to me is the lack of accountability. Who would be the person who is responsable for that if is not the coach?
Obviously reach that point isnt desirable to any one, always is better to have good sport psychology skills and get it going with a good talk, but I dont think that is Thibs strenght. But he if he doesnt do neither of that the problem will just become bigger and comeback to bite you in the ass anyway, like it or not.

[walk with me]

This squad has not impressed in the least. It was always obvious that Wiggins might not pan out, but Towns? Man, KAT is disappointing me big time and that's a real kick to nads.

Also Thibs doesn't seem to be any better than Random Coach X at this point. Maybe he's overrated like Pringles was, who needed Steve Nash to make his offense go, except Thibs needs someone like Joakim Noah to make his defense go.

Kat will be a beast but he needs a “big 3” scenario so guys far greater than him cover up his weaknesses.. an example of a big 3 I’m talking about is like. Russell Westbrook, Kawhi and Kat. Thibs hasn’t been perfect but thibs mistakes are amplified by Kat when he is a gaping hole on defense and a stat chaser on offense. If Kat just played solid defense and didn’t have so many mental break downs. We’d habe 2-3 more wins instead of 2-3 more losses.

I've always felt it's almost impossible to hide a weak defensive big. It'd be fine for a bench player, but a starting big should be covering up for the defensive weakness of OTHER guys on the team, not the reverse.

Can't we just put KG in a time machine and have him back on the team as a 22 year old?

Its def hard when P&R is such an important facet of the modern nba. Any time a team runs P&R win Kat the is instantly broken due to the fact that 4 guys gave to OVER SCRAMBLE and OVER HUSTLE to cover for KAT. I feel bad for the guys on the team who will continue to be blamed. I even feel bad for Rubio, I’ll never think Rubio is/was the player people try to make him out to be but some of the flack he got (specifically the 4th quarter lead point) is due to Kats defensive negligence.

[PharmD]

Towns' defense is talked about every single day. In fact, i tried talking last year about how utterly, utterly lazy he was on defense and was told that i the problem was he tried TOO hard and ended up out of position.

I thought his defense was pretty good yesterday tho, on the whole.

[jumpmanjay]

Also Thibs doesn't seem to be any better than Random Coach X at this point. Maybe he's overrated like Pringles was, who needed Steve Nash to make his offense go, except Thibs needs someone like Joakim Noah to make his defense go.

It's pretty common knowledge that Thibs' system requires a positionally sound big to make everything work well.

KG, Noah, and Asik all thrived in Thibs' system. NONE of them are as physically gifted as KAT, yet they run circles around him in defensive effectiveness.

[Narf]

Towns was still 21 years old at the start of the season (barely I know). Most 21/22 year olds are terrible at D in the NBA, and while Towns is worse than average at rotating even for his age he's also at the age where you'd still expect it to "click" eventually.

Does anyone think Houston cares that Harden still sucks at D but has figured out how to at least be serviceable? Even if Towns never fully figured it out, that's what his future value is going to be. He's going to be as valuable offensively/rebounding as Harden and at least as valuable defensively.

This took Harden years to figure out, Towns is not even close to done improving.

[PharmD]

I just rewatched the 4th quarter and Towns' defense wasn't bad at all really. He was clearly absolutely gassed like everyone else the last 3 minutes tho.

[Klomp]

In fact, i tried talking last year about how utterly, utterly lazy he was on defense and was told that i the problem was he tried TOO hard and ended up out of position.

I actually still believe this is partly the case. Think about all the times he goes after blocks he probably shouldn't and ends up out of position. He's not chasing those blocks due to laziness.

And yes, the timing is odd for this thread, considering Towns didn't really seem to be the problem last night.

[vagelis]

Towns main strengths are outside shooting, good basketball skills for his height and his good pace when running the open court.
I think that these are not the main assets that a center should have.
He is not strong enough for a center, he has average vertical and he has not many moves near the basket.
In my opinion the ideal centers are bigger, stronger and more physical like O'Neal or now Embiid.
Towns is not an ideal center in fact he is not a center but he is also not a pf and I think this is not good.
He can put the ball into the basket mainly because of his shooting and he is a talented offensive player.
But he is also a selfish player who plays for his stats.
I also think without being sure about that, that he has not a lot of room to grow because he is not raw, he came to the league skilled enough.
But we will see, he is very young and things can change.

[walk with me]

In fact, i tried talking last year about how utterly, utterly lazy he was on defense and was told that i the problem was he tried TOO hard and ended up out of position.

I actually still believe this is partly the case. Think about all the times he goes after blocks he probably shouldn't and ends up out of position. He's not chasing those blocks due to laziness.

And yes, the timing is odd for this thread, considering Towns didn't really seem to be the problem last night.

Nothing planned about the timing. Seeing things at target center is VERY DIFFERENT then watching on tv. Things you get to see at the arena and not on tv.

- bench interactions
- on court interactions that aren’t camera visible


I just didn’t like a lot of what I saw and the things I disliked would typically start with Kat. I can tolerate Wiggins early shot clock jumpers if he’s hustling on defense, can handle thibs short rotations since bazz was awful, I can handle thibs used timeouts cause the game should have been won before that, I could handle jimmy shooting 5-15 or whatever he shot.

The team has trust issues that START with kat. Those are my personal observations. If anyone doesn’t agree that’s totally cool but the way I see it. Jimmy and Taj get tired of cleaning up Kats mess and they try to take matters into their own hands. It ends up with everyone on diff pages instead of trusting one another.

[jumpmanjay]

In fact, i tried talking last year about how utterly, utterly lazy he was on defense and was told that i the problem was he tried TOO hard and ended up out of position.

I actually still believe this is partly the case. Think about all the times he goes after blocks he probably shouldn't and ends up out of position. He's not chasing those blocks due to laziness.

And yes, the timing is odd for this thread, considering Towns didn't really seem to be the problem last night.

I agree he still "tries too hard," and that his defense was actually very good yesterday. Now maybe if he didn't spend so much time complaining (even though he had every right to be upset)...

I don't think KAT is a finished product, not by far. He's still young and hopefully he gets it. However, it is a huge thing holding the team back right now.

[Domejandro]

how can it be an elephant in the room if it's talked about all the time on the net?

It is discussed border-line all of the time, I'm completely confused by the premise of the thread.