Timberwolves: Karl-Anthony Towns and the All-NBA snubs

Karl-Anthony Towns has played some top level basketball for the Minnesota Timberwolves, but he’s only made an All-NBA team once. What’s the barrier?

Karl-Anthony Towns has been one of the rare picks for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Not only has he lived up to the hype that surrounded him when he was drafted first overall in the 2015 NBA draft, but he’s outplayed anybody’s expectations for him over his first four years.

While it might have taken other young players a few years to come into their own, KAT seems to be playing top-tier basketball right from the start.

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Three years ago, NBA GMs said that they wanted to build a team around KAT. Last season, people started talking about him as one of the best big men in the NBA. He is a career 20/10/2 player in points, rebounds, and assists per game, and has a shooting split of 53/39/83.

To top that all off, the man isn’t even 24 yet.

So, with all that he has already done, there’s really only one question that remains: Why hasn’t he made more All-NBA teams?

Towns has only made one All-NBA team. During the 2017-18 season, he made the All-NBA third team alongside Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Stephen Curry and Victor Oladipo.

Two of those players (George and Curry) would go on to make All-NBA first team the next season and Oladipo almost certainly would have made one of the three teams had it not been for a gruesome leg injury that took him out in January:

Last season, Towns improved in points, rebounds, blocks, and steals per game over his 2017-18 season. Still, Towns didn’t make a single All-NBA team.

To be fair, there is an argument for not having Towns on the All-NBA first team. During 2018-19, there were really two KAT’s: the one before the All Star break, and the one after.

Before the All-Star break, Towns averaged 23.1 points, 12.0 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.8 blocks per game on a 51/38/84 shooting split. After the All Star break, Towns averaged 28.1 points, 13.4 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.2 blocks per game with a shooting split of 53/42/81.

This sharp difference was mainly caused by the exit of what is now recognized as the toxic attitudes of Tom Thibeadu and Jimmy Butler, but the inconsistency in play could have been enough to keep him behind the center who did make the All-NBA first team, Nikola Jokic.

It would also be hard to argue the Towns deserved the All-NBA second team over Joel Embiid.

Embiid played a really solid game throughout the entire 2018-19 season, averaging 27.5 points, 13.6 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 1.9 blocks per game; all of which were higher than Towns’ numbers for last season.

The only argument that Towns would have over Embiid would be durability. Towns played in 77 games last season, but due to injury, Embiid would only suit up for 64.

The problem arises with the All-NBA third team. The center who made that squad was Rudy Gobert, a great big man in his own right. Still, Towns dominated him in nearly every category.

Last season, Towns averaged 24.4 points, 12.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists, and 1.6 blocks per game on 51/40/83 shooting. In comparison, Gobert averaged 15.9 points, 12.9 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 2.3 blocks on 66/0/63 shooting.

There really is no argument for why Gobert beat out Towns for that spot. Sure, his defense was better, but Towns had Gobert beat in offense, shooting and facilitating. Even with that, Gobert did beat out Towns by 69 points.

Over his four-year career, Towns has only averaged less than 20 points per game once. Ironically, it was that season the he made All-NBA third team. So why hasn’t he made more? Well, part of it comes down to timing.

Not that it’s impossible, but it’s incredibly unlikely for first- or second-year big men to make an All-NBA team. Again, not impossible (Joel Embiid did it), but harder than it would be for a guard. Part of that comes down to the fact that their game just doesn’t catch as many eyes.

Guards and wings are the faster, more athletic highlight reels, whereas big men are the strong foundation for a team.

Another part of that is, because of the relatively slow-paced game they play compared to guards, big men tend to retain their form from year-to-year. If they can stay healthy (and sometimes that’s a big if), they’re more likely to be admired as a top-tier player.

Look at a player like DeAndre Jordan.

An elite rebounder, scorer and shot blocker during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons, but since then he hasn’t really played at that same level and still, he’s thought of as one of the best big men in the league, even though there’s competition from Jokic, Embiid, and yes, Towns.

Don’t believe that? Consider the fact that DeMarcus Cousins has comparable, if not better, stats to Jordan, yet nobody thinks of Cousins on Jordan’s level. Why? Jordan hasn’t had much of an injury problem. Cousins has.

Because of this, it’s likely that Towns will just have to wait another year or two before he is widely considered as one of the elite big men in the NBA, even though he’s really there already.

Granted, his defense isn’t what everybody thought it would be, but for a player as skilled on the offensive end as he is, it’s a shock we’ve only seen him on one All-NBA team up to this point.