**The Official Karl-Anthony Towns Thread: Part Two**

[Klomp]

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[m2002brian]

Judd is absolutely right and echos every sentiment I have about KAT.

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[thinktank]

Judd is absolutely right and echos every sentiment I have about KAT.

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Don’t need to see that guy on the left whatsoever.

[TimberKat]

Why isn't Gobert the leader of the team? I still think this leader stuff is overblown. Towns is not the starting center anymore. He needs to learn a new position and be a part time center. If he does it well, he will be the leader and all star. Action speaks louder than words.

[TimberKat]

Anyone has update on the status of Towns? Feels like he should be back by now. Maybe we are going to put him on the shelf until we could trade him in the summer ?

Seriously, I still think the Towns + Gobert combo can work and give us an identity. I think Towns just need to be at the right spot on D. I also notice Gobert has improve his offensive game by being further away from the rim on some plays.

[shrink]

What do you make of these Towns’ tweets?

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[Guest84]

I heard about his tweets from listening to Skor North the other day. As of now, I wouldn't make anything of it.

[shrink]

I know KAT and Paul George are friends, but it’s hard for me to see a trade that unites them in either city.

We don’t have enough assets we could add to DLo to bring in PG, and Gobert is probably a “no” from both sides, at least right now. And LAC would have trouble getting MIN to give up the loyal KAT.

What if the two were swapped for each other? Which side says no first?

[TimberKat]

I heard about his tweets from listening to Skor North the other day. As of now, I wouldn't make anything of it.

He is either drunk or working on his next rap song

[TimberKat]

I know KAT and Paul George are friends, but it’s hard for me to see a trade that unites them in either city.

We don’t have enough assets we could add to DLo to bring in PG, and Gobert is probably a “no” from both sides, at least right now. And LAC would have trouble getting MIN to give up the loyal KAT.

What if the two were swapped for each other? Which side says no first?

Intriguing and Wolves say "no" because PG is more injury/decline prone than Towns at this point. Making this trade is like the Bulter trade a few years back (Although Bulter played at Elite level longer than I expected). It gets us to the playoffs and good for 2 years, but I don't know if that line up with Ant's timeline.

[minimus]

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I wonder how much we miss Towns postups this season, I was really encouraged when he start to pass the ball more three years ago

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Last season he tried a bit too much, but I liked his willingness to pass the ball last season (albeit I prefer simple passes rather than fancy slings over shoulder)

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This season he threw some very good lob passes to Gobert, learning art of short passes

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Now back to the question. I was very curious to see DAL building this year identity around Doncic postups (he was first in postups and DAL had slowest pace of all NBA team although results were mixed), now I see DEN leading West conference while playing the best post offense. I still think that this is the area where Finch can really thrive as an elite coach: build top NBA post offense around Towns. Last year we played a lot of Towns postups on left wing. This year Finch (and whole team) had to completely abandon this game, because of Towns injury and Gobert. I remember how I was mad at Teague when he could not feed Towns in the post, but nowadays Towns is much more than postup scorer, he has learned how to create scoring opportunities, he is one of the best slashers among bigs, he started to pass the ball, he shoots 3s. But I think the biggest area of improvement for Towns is whether he can incorporate all these things into his unique playing style.

P.S. Another opportunity for MIN would be develop Edwards postup game. Give him clean looks in postup situations, rather than making him strictly ISO scorer or slasher.

[Klomp]

Now back to the question. I was very curious to see DAL building this year identity around Doncic postups (he was first in postups and DAL had slowest pace of all NBA team although results were mixed), now I see DEN leading West conference while playing the best post offense. I still think that this is the area where Finch can really thrive as an elite coach: build top NBA post offense around Towns. Last year we played a lot of Towns postups on left wing. This year Finch (and whole team) had to completely abandon this game, because of Towns injury and Gobert. I remember how I was mad at Teague when he could not feed Towns in the post, but nowadays Towns is much more than postup scorer, he has learned how to create scoring opportunities, he is one of the best slashers among bigs, he started to pass the ball, he shoots 3s. But I think the biggest area of improvement for Towns is whether he can incorporate all these things into his unique playing style.

P.S. Another opportunity for MIN would be develop Edwards postup game. Give him clean looks in postup situations, rather than making him strictly ISO scorer or slasher.

I get it, but I think that's been a little part of the problem too. Those teams do that to invite the double, where said player kicks it out to good shooters. We haven't had those shooters. It also bogs down the offense.

[moss_is_1]

Wasn't his injury 4-6 weeks? Has there been any update on his injury?

[Guest84]

According to the Star Tribune article I just saw, "But Towns revealed he had a Grade 3 calf strain, a severe injury that could command a recovery time of more than two months, and not a less severe Grade 2 strain".

[minimus]

According to the Star Tribune article I just saw, "But Towns revealed he had a Grade 3 calf strain, a severe injury that could command a recovery time of more than two months, and not a less severe Grade 2 strain".

That's brutal... However, it might be blessing in disguise, if young players Ant, MCD thrive in Towns absence and it will speed up their development

[Klomp]

The Shams/Woj tweets about his timeline were literally while he was in the MRI still, according to him. Grade 2 may have been the team hope going in, but that timeline was never grounded in facts.

[shrink]

Since this injury is so likely to recur if a player comes back too soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wolves held him out until after the All Star Break. For MIN (23-24), that would mean another 14 games without Towns, leaving 21 games (starting Feb 24th) left to establish playoff seeding and get him and the team ramped up for the Playoffs.

[Dewey]

Leave him out. Not like we are title contenders. We cannot afford and unhealthy towns moving forward into the off-season

[life_saver]

So Dane discussed about KAT's injury situation in his podcast today...so basically Woj/ESPN messed it up by initially saying 4-6 week timetable in the headline when injury happened. Wolves apparently officially didn't mention 4-6 week timetable..it was just Woj/ESPN who said that and most of the people went by what ESPN said. Wolves and Finch officially mentioned that KAT is out indefinitely and once they got to know it was Grade 3 stain, they stuck with the 'indefinitely out'. 4-6 week timetable would have been right for a Grade 2 strain whereas Grade 3 calf strain can take much longer to recover

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[minimus]

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https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-nba-teams-are-bringing-the-post-up-back-to-life

Overall trend is that:

NBA teams are hunting mismatches in the low post

Post-ups are producing more, but are used less

I wonder if Towns postups can be that stabilizing axis for our struggling offense. Gobert never had teammate who can postup, they always ran spread pick-n-roll. Another thing is potential Edwards postup game. Everyone sees Finch first task is to "run more spread pick-n-roll", but I have my doubts here. What if we can re-integrate postups into our offense?