Karl-Anthony Towns had his best season yet. Why is he getting less respect?

Karl-Anthony Towns had his best season yet. Why is he getting less respect?

Karl-Anthony Towns had his best season yet. Why is he getting less respect?
NBA

Karl-Anthony Towns had his best season yet. Why is he getting less respect?

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The NBA’s annual general manager survey revealed the KAT hype train has derailed.

A strange thing has happened with Karl-Anthony Towns.

He entered the league carrying tremendous hype as a No. 1 overall pick. That hype built after he showed evidence of brilliance over his first two years. In his third season, at age 22, he realized all that promise in full: he became an NBA All-Star and landed on the All-NBA team and helped carry the Timberwolves to their first playoff appearance in 14 years.

Karl-Anthony Towns has absolutely lived up to the hype. He has delivered what the wildest Timberwolf dreams could have pictured back in 2015.

Yet, the fact that Jimmy Butler wants out of Minnesota, and after a couple of rough playoff games against the extraordinary Rockets last April, the Towns bubble has deflated tremendously.

The Wolves did reach a maximum-value extension with Towns a week ago, about three months after normal teams would reach maximum-value extensions with their 22-year-old franchise cornerstones. We don’t know whether the Wolves or Towns were holding that deal up — it could have been the latter due to concerns with Butler’s gurgling unrest — but players like this usually don’t have any delays on securing that first extension immediately in the summer after Year 3. (Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis come to mind. Those guys signed their rookie extensions quickly and quietly. Towns is of that caliber based on his first three seasons.)

But it’s not just Minnesota that has reacted to Towns’ realization of his potential in an odd way.

Before the 2016-17 season, Towns’ second in the NBA, 48 percent of the league’s general managers chose Towns as the player they would choose to build their franchise around if they could sign any player. Last year, Towns finished No. 1 on this question again, though his share of GM votes fell to 29 percent. This made some sense: while Towns’ numbers improved and he continued to wow, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s ascension had begun to raise expectations of what he could be, and the Wolves were still on a seemingly eternal mediocre skid.

Again, Towns became an All-Star and made the All-NBA team for the first time last season. He played 82 games for the third straight season. He finally made the playoffs. He averaged 21 and 12 on elite shooting efficiency. He shot better than 40 percent on threes. He got better. He proved again the hype was worth it.

Not a single NBA general manager said they would build around Karl-Anthony Towns over all other players in this year’s survey.

Where did those votes go? Giannis is now the leader in the category, and Anthony Davis (a former top answer to this question — AD once got more than 80 percent of the vote!) has had a resurgence. Still, it’s striking that Towns continued down the obvious path toward a Hall of Fame career and every GM who had previously said they’d pick him over every other player in the NBA have abandoned ship in favor of Giannis, AD, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, LeBron or even, in the case of one voter, Joel Embiid.

Davis had this sort of melt over the course of a few years, but that was tied to the Pelicans’ futility and some serious injury concerns. The Wolves are on an upward swing and Towns has never missed an NBA game.

The Butler saga and Towns’ lack of defensive improvement definitely matter in all this. Butler seems to get a lion’s share of the credit for the Wolves’ playoff bid because it happened only once he arrived. However, Towns was clearly the best offensive player on the team and arguably the best player overall, especially when you count durability.

There’s also the matter of realized talent being less interesting than pure potential. The dream of what Anthony Davis could become back in 2015, or what Towns would accomplish in 2017 — that’s much more interesting to explore mentally than what they actually do when potential is put into practice. Towns’ inside-out game, his mobility, his size — it’s all very useful. It helps you win games, and Towns is learning how to use it all more efficiently every year. But it’s not necessarily as revolutionary as it once seemed. Giannis? He’s still revolutionary.

If Towns follows AD’s path on the roller coaster of hype, he’ll win over the hearts and minds of the NBA power structure once again. And really, the hype doesn’t actually matter beyond awards voting, the GM survey, maybe endorsement deals, maybe in public All-Star voting. What matters is what Towns does on the court. If he continues to produce, to get more efficient, to fill his gaps and make the Timberwolves better, he’ll get the recognition he deserves.

Assuming, of course, this Jimmy Butler saga ends soon.