Minnesota Timberwolves: Grading The Offseason
The Draft
When you have the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, your biggest objective is to not screw it up or overthink things. Remember the Anthony Bennett pick that prompted Bill Simmons’ “WHOA!” and an ensuing Twitter meltdown? Even if Bennett turns into a serviceable role player, people will be mocking that selection for years to come.
You don’t want to be that team.
Luckily, the Minnesota Timberwolves made the right choice in taking Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns first overall. Towns is a 6’11”, 250-pound behemoth who just so happens to also be one of the most skilled players with quite possibly the highest upside in this year’s draft class.
Towns isn’t your typical back-to-the-basket big, however. He’s capable of stretching the floor with a decent midrange jumper that he may be able to extend to three-point territory in time. At 19 years old, there’s obviously no rush for Towns to do so, but at the very least the Wolves have added an elite shot-blocker who hopes to be the team’s defensive foundation for years to come.
Although Towns didn’t quite blow anyone away at NBA Summer League, he still averaged a respectable 12.8 points, 7.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.8 blocks per game in five appearances. His 39.6 percent shooting will obviously need to improve, and it’s worth noting that Towns missed all five of his three-point attempts, but no one should be worried about his staggering potential.
Between Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota is off to a tremendous start with their rebuild in having not one, but two potential franchise players. Between his size, intelligence, athleticism and skill, Towns was a no-brainer at No. 1.
Nailing the top pick in the draft would’ve been enough to earn Minnesota an “A” here, but then they went out and packaged their No. 31 pick, their No. 36 pick and a 2019 second rounder to move up to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 24th overall pick. There, they selected a potential backup point guard for the future in Duke’s Tyus Jones.
Though he’s undersized at 6’2″ and not much of an athlete, Jones is a pure point guard who has excellent court vision and, like Towns, a very high basketball IQ. In addition to his 11.8 points per game scoring average in college, Jones also posted 5.6 assists per game and shot 37.9 percent from three-point territory, making him a well-balanced floor general.
No one should be thinking Jones has star potential or that he will eventually take Ricky Rubio‘s place in the starting lineup. But there’s some value in having a quality long-term backup, especially since the Wolves got such great value by taking a player projected to go in the late teens with the 24th pick.
Grade: A
Next: Keeping KG