Towns deals?

[Crazysauce]

Lebron missed 27 games that season. Thats about a third of the season. And they still finished with 37 wins. What the hell are you talking about?

[Wolvesfan21]

Lebron missed 27 games that season. Thats about a third of the season. And they still finished with 37 wins. What the hell are you talking about?

Did anyone ever think KAT was even close to as good as LeBron? Why don't you bring up JO and the fact he struggles to make a layup without turning the ball over. Or how teams were leaving Rubio wide open all season because he struggled to hit the rim?

We don't actually know what went down between Butler and KAT. Reports were that Butler slept with his GF at the time. Is Butler really that good of a teammate if he is doing that? Butler was not a good leader and even was booted from Philly too. He finally learned his lesson and has stuck in Miami. But he went through 3 teams in 3 years.

Blaming KAT right now is silly, oh he's not LeBron James from 2007. No shit. lol

The T-E-A-M is bad and yes KAT could be better but his Mom died in the offseason, he dislocated his wrist and he had Covid. I would let him slide for not being LeBron James at the moment. lol

[Crazysauce]

Oh God forbid we expect kat to lead a team to the playoffs. Thats just too damn much to ask apparently. Good old saint kat. Hes untouchable for criticism on these boards. Who the hell said he had to be lebron? Why the hell are we talking about josh okogie?

[Lipoli390]

Also let me remind you this is a LeBron James that brought a team of Eric Snow, Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden and an aging Illgauskas to the finals by basically himself. Kevin Love has always been very highly overrated before he left here.

Yep, and he did that more than a decade ago when the league was completely different. Why are we bringing up 2007 when I referenced 2018? If LeBron James couldn't singlehandedly vault the Lakers into the playoffs in the Western Conference, then why should we pile on Karl-Anthony Towns for not being able to with the Wolves? The point is that great players need quality supporting casts and Towns hasn't been given that for the large majority of his career. This isn't a logical conversation at this point. You need more than one good/great player to compete in today's NBA. Period.

You're absolutely right, Cam. I think there's a psychological blind spot at work here with some folks. Maybe it's true that familiarity breeds contempt. Some just can't see anyone other than KAT, Embiid and Jokic. They just don't see the other players around them. They can't remember a Wolves team headed for a 4th seed with a 21-year old KAT before Butler was hurt. That's pretty definitive of what KAT can do with good teammates. Even KG couldn't get the Wolves into the playoffs after 2014, but the next year in Boston he was competing for a championship. Gosh, what happened? Oh, KG went from mediocre teammates to good ones like Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. KG was the best of those three, but he still couldn't get the Wolves in to the playoffs the year before.

Pointing to Jokic's stats this season as a definitive indicator that he's better than KAT isn't persuasive at all. You have to look at multiple years and their relative situations, including especially who they're playing with.

[kekgeek]

Oh God forbid we expect kat to lead a team to the playoffs. Thats just too damn much to ask apparently. Good old saint kat. Hes untouchable for criticism on these boards. Who the hell said he had to be lebron? Why the hell are we talking about josh okogie?

I rip Kat a lot but I am also realistic. The person this year who has played the most minutes has been Beasley, he was 8th in minutes for the Jokic lead Nuggets. So a huge key player was a 3rd bench guy for the Nuggets last year. Kat has played with 1 player who was close to an all star level player in his time with the Wolves and when he did the Wolves were a 4 seed.

[Wolvesfan21]

Oh God forbid we expect kat to lead a team to the playoffs. Thats just too damn much to ask apparently. Good old saint kat. Hes untouchable for criticism on these boards. Who the hell said he had to be lebron? Why the hell are we talking about josh okogie?

Because you need to be as great as LeBron to lead a bunch of rookies and some scrubs to the playoffs (some young guys I like but they are not good yet.)

[AbeVigodaLive]

Also let me remind you this is a LeBron James that brought a team of Eric Snow, Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden and an aging Illgauskas to the finals by basically himself. Kevin Love has always been very highly overrated before he left here.

Yep, and he did that more than a decade ago when the league was completely different. Why are we bringing up 2007 when I referenced 2018? If LeBron James couldn't singlehandedly vault the Lakers into the playoffs in the Western Conference, then why should we pile on Karl-Anthony Towns for not being able to with the Wolves? The point is that great players need quality supporting casts and Towns hasn't been given that for the large majority of his career. This isn't a logical conversation at this point. You need more than one good/great player to compete in today's NBA. Period.

You're absolutely right, Cam. I think there's a psychological blind spot at work here with some folks. Maybe it's true that familiarity breeds contempt. Some just can't see anyone other than KAT, Embiid and Jokic. They just don't see the other players around them. They can't remember a Wolves team headed for a 4th seed with a 21-year old KAT before Butler was hurt. That's pretty definitive of what KAT can do with good teammates. Even KG couldn't get the Wolves into the playoffs after 2014, but the next year in Boston he was competing for a championship. Gosh, what happened? Oh, KG went from mediocre teammates to good ones like Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. KG was the best of those three, but he still couldn't get the Wolves in to the playoffs the year before.

Pointing to Jokic's stats this season as a definitive indicator that he's better than KAT isn't persuasive at all. You have to look at multiple years and their relative situations, including especially who they're playing with.

Towns has never had a season like Jokic is having now. Very few have in the entire history of the NBA. And instead of dismissing Jokic for past seasons... isn't it even more fair to give him credit for scoring 7 more ppg... AND... improving his efficiency? That's astounding. It's not like his teammates suddenly changed or got better and enabled him to do that. That improvement is on Jokic. Give him his due.

Are we entirely certain that Towns stats would go UP with better teammates? Because they didn't in 2018.

It's not a knock to Towns to state that he's just not as good as the two leading MVP candidates. It's ok to give credit to players on other teams for legendary seasons.

Can Towns reach Jokic's of Embiid's level? I dunno. Maybe. But I'm done with the "potential" and "promise" game as everybody here knows. Show me. It's year 6. And for whatever excuses we want to give Towns (some very justified)... that gap is increasing.

This isn't a Wiggins/Minnesota vs. Giannis/Milwaukee type of thing where early "potential" promises looked foolish very quickly. Towns is a masterful player. He's an All NBA type talent. He's great. But he just hasn't shown that he's as good as the two top centers in the league. He's not among the very BEST players right now.