Minnesota Sports Forum

1. Towns whining and complaining. AGAIN... watch any number of other "star" players. Yes. It's annoying. Yes. It can hurt the team. But it's NOT only a Towns issue. And he's not even the worst at it. There are guys who are MUCH worse.

2. Yes. He does dumb stuff. That he STILL kicks out his leg or flails his arm and hooks when he's on offense shows a lack of commitment to be his best self. His penchant for silly home run passes sucks. BUT...

The issue isn't and has never been that Karl-Anthony Towns complains, bitches, and whines about calls/non-calls. A lot of the time he's right to feel the way he does and a lot of players in the league do the same. The issue is that he's such an emotional player that he'll allow those unfavorable decisions from the officials to override his focus and depreciate his performance. He gets caught up in the foul game and not the actual game happening on the court. Other star players bitch and complain, but they remain focused on making plays and winning the game, not getting the calls. Towns essentially self-implodes. That's the main difference as I see it.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:1. Towns whining and complaining. AGAIN... watch any number of other "star" players. Yes. It's annoying. Yes. It can hurt the team. But it's NOT only a Towns issue. And he's not even the worst at it. There are guys who are MUCH worse.

2. Yes. He does dumb stuff. That he STILL kicks out his leg or flails his arm and hooks when he's on offense shows a lack of commitment to be his best self. His penchant for silly home run passes sucks. BUT...

Well put, Abe. I remember when fans complained about KG not taking over games late, not wanting the ball in crunch time and often passing rather than shooting in critical moments of the game. Those criticisms seem silly in retrospect. I'm not suggesting that KG's perceived flaws were on par with KAT's. But I am suggesting that there's a lot of truth to the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt.

KAT is a flawed player. But he's a great player - by far the best player on this team and second only to KG as the best player in franchise history. I don't like the whining, but it's trivial in the scheme of things, and as you noted, it's commonplace in the NBA and KAT's not even the worst by any stretch. I do want him to stop with the dumb home-run or cute passes. But the one thing I want him to change more than anything is his occasional failure to hustle back on defense. He can whine all he wants, but he needs to hustle back while he's whining. In the meantime, I know we can count on him to score 20-25 highly efficient points and pull down at least 9 or 10 rebounds and get several assists every single game. And I know he can put up 39 points and pull down 15 rebounds like he did last night.

Camden wrote:The issue isn't and has never been that Karl-Anthony Towns complains, bitches, and whines about calls/non-calls. A lot of the time he's right to feel the way he does and a lot of players in the league do the same. The issue is that he's such an emotional player that he'll allow those unfavorable decisions from the officials to override his focus and depreciate his performance. He gets caught up in the foul game and not the actual game happening on the court. Other star players bitch and complain, but they remain focused on making plays and winning the game, not getting the calls. Towns essentially self-implodes. That's the main difference as I see it.

Sure.

The whining and complaining isn't necessarily the problem. The result of that complaining on his game has proven to be a larger problem at times.

Remember that 4-9 start to the season? Remember the doom and gloom setting in on the board?

The Wolves are 27-18 (.600) since then.

Kat's whining and complaining is a little bit different in that most of it occurs on the offensive end. And quite frankly, most of the time he's out of control or trying to exaggerate contact. Many times he's the reason for the contact. There are a lot of serial complainers in the league, some worse than KAT. But he just looks so childish in the way he goes about it, and he shows up the officials.

Camden wrote:The issue isn't and has never been that Karl-Anthony Towns complains, bitches, and whines about calls/non-calls. A lot of the time he's right to feel the way he does and a lot of players in the league do the same. The issue is that he's such an emotional player that he'll allow those unfavorable decisions from the officials to override his focus and depreciate his performance. He gets caught up in the foul game and not the actual game happening on the court. Other star players bitch and complain, but they remain focused on making plays and winning the game, not getting the calls. Towns essentially self-implodes. That's the main difference as I see it.

I think that's right, Cam. That's essentially what I was getting at regarding his tendency to not hustle back while whining. You got to the nub of the issue. KAT lets his emotions get the best of him, which causes him to lose focus. That's his one really meaningful or significant flaw and it's clearly the one thing he needs to correct. The way you've framed it makes it clear that it's fixable.

The good news is that KAT has a track record of fixing flaws in his game. He has markedly improved his defense. More recently, he's been making much quicker decisions with the ball, which has made it more difficult for defenses to get set and allowed him to effectively drive to the basket. He'll always be emotional and sometimes annoying, but I still believe he can and eventually will stop allowing his emotions to diminish his performance. He has a head coach and teammates like DLO and Ant who have shown they'll call him for his failings and lapses.

In short, I'm not worried about KAT. Whether this team becomes a championship contender will turn largely on the development of Ant and on the whether the front office can shore up some team weaknesses, especially the team's defensive rebounding. As a case in point, the Wolves were out-rebounded again last night even though KAT and Vanderbilt had 15 and 10 boards respectively. I also like what we've seen recently from McDaniels and I still see him as a big part of the team's improvement next season and beyond.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:1. Towns whining and complaining. AGAIN... watch any number of other "star" players. Yes. It's annoying. Yes. It can hurt the team. But it's NOT only a Towns issue. And he's not even the worst at it. There are guys who are MUCH worse.

2. Yes. He does dumb stuff. That he STILL kicks out his leg or flails his arm and hooks when he's on offense shows a lack of commitment to be his best self. His penchant for silly home run passes sucks. BUT...

Idk if it's still the same but for years Durant had some hilariously bad passes in transition. If you knew about this you could just see some of them coming. It was weird it's like he doesn't know what the hell he is doing in those situations at times and he is one of the greatest offensive players ever.

Jaden was fun to watch last night. I have a couple of observations. On the defensive glass, he is the only player who will actually find a man to box out and keep away from the rebound. He's excellent at it, but it actually keeps him from getting more rebounds and allows KAT or Vando, who just rely on athleticism, to get more boards. But one thing is sure, the man he's boxing out doesn't get the board.

He is getting more aggressive on the offensive end week by week. Not just on 3's, but in midrange attempts and getting to the basket. He needs to tighten up his handle to be a true triple threat, but I like what I am seeing. Based on the skill set he's showing, I don't just want him standing in the corner waiting to shoot an occasional 3. DLO is starting to involve him more in the sets, the lob to him in OT was fantastic. His development is key to getting our team to the next level.

In regards to Towns kicking his leg out while attacking the hoop. I don't think it is always deliberate. Rugby players often inadvertently do it when jumping to catch a kicked ball. They use there lead leg to counter balance and often it results in that leg coming into contact with another player. And I guess when you're 7ft, 250lbs it's more obvious. Towns always take a lot of contact when he drives as well that puts him off balance. It's a vicious circle because if he got more foul calls he wouldn't have to rely on making a plays off balanced a lot of the time.

I honestly don't blame him for whining to the officials all the time. But it clearly doesn't work and it's definitely time to try something another tact.