NBA MVP race looks to be wide open in reshuffled league hierarchy

The ability of Karl-Anthony Towns to insert himself into the NBA MVP discussion will depend very heavily on how far the Minnesota Timberwolves can climb after falling to 36-46 one season after reaching the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.

But Towns does check a lot of the boxes. The five games he missed due to a February concussion and with inflammation in his right knee in both March and April were the first games he had missed in his four-year career.

And Towns can put up numbers like few bigs in the league. Last season, he averaged 24.4 points, 12.4 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.6 blocks in 33.1 minutes per game — setting new career-highs in both rebounding and assists — while shooting 51.8 percent overall and 40.0 percent on 4.6 3-point tries a game.

Let’s see — nearly 25 points and more than 12 boards while shooting 40 percent from deep? Yeah, that checks a whole lot of MVP boxes.

Towns also got to the free throw line at a career-high rate of 5.8 attempts per game and he’s a career 83.6 percent shooter, so he can make opponents pay for putting him there.

Whether the Timberwolves, who still have Jeff Teague at the point guard spot and the enigmatic Andrew Wiggins devouring mucho cap space at a wing spot, can win enough games to make Towns a viable candidate will be the determining factor for his candidacy.