Karl-Anthony Towns lost seven family members to Covid. He came back and shone
On 14 March 2022, KarlAnthony Towns pirouetted, leapt and dunked his way to a 60-point performance with the grace of a ballet dancer and the strength of, well, a 7ft, 250lb NBA player. After the game, he started to text the most important person in his life: his mother, Jackie. Then he stopped himself and started to cry.
“This was a moment for us,” Towns later told ESPN. “She would’ve loved it.”
If Kyrie Irving is the NBA’s posterboy for how to get away with not taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously, then Minnesota Timberwolves star center Towns represents why it’s important that you do.
Since the start of the pandemic, Towns, who is just 26 years old, has lost Jackie and six other family members to Covid-19. His own bout with the virus left him hospitalized in January of last year. He has spoken about the grief that he went through and the need for people to get vaccinated after seeing several prominent NBA stars express their reasons for holding out.
It turned out 14 March was significant for other reasons. “Yesterday was two years to the date that my parents walked into the ER at JFK Medical Center in Edison, NJ and were admitted with COVID-19,” he wrote on Twitter the next day. “The same hospital that my mother gave me life, and tragically, the same hospital where I saw her life begin to slip away.
“Two years later, I walked into AT&T Center with the greatest guardian angel that I could ever ask for and dropped 60 against the winningest coach of all time. I say this to say…no matter what life throws at you, you can come out of it stronger. Tough times don’t last, tough people do. Miss you Momma. This game….my life…is for you.”
Towns had to grieve the loss of his mother with the world watching. And, to make matters worse, he was simultaneously dealing with an unstable and disappointing workplace culture in Minnesota, where the Timberwolves
have been going through strife of their own since drafting Towns No 1 overall in 2015 — and long before that, too. In fact, with a new head coach and general manager in the last 13 months, Towns is now up to five head coaches and six heads of basketball operations in his six-and-a-half seasons in Minnesota. Throughout all the off-court turmoil, Towns has struggled to carry the heavy burden placed upon him on the court. He has consistently put up big numbers but Minnesota won only 39% of their games and reached just one playoff series in his first six seasons there.
Fortunately for Towns, that 60point performance wasn’t just an anomaly, and the Timberwolves appear to be turning a corner. They currently sit seventh in the Western Conference in what will go down as just the franchise’s second winning season in the past 17 years. They score the most points per game of any team in the league, and are guaranteed at least a play-in berth.
The Wolves are full of young, athletic players such as guards D’Angelo Russell and Anthony Edwards, and they play a fun and exciting brand of basketball led by new head coach Chris Finch. But a lot of their improvement this season – and I mean a lot– is because of Towns. He’s averaging 24.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 3.6 assists, along with 1.1 blocks and 1.0 steals per game. He was
also named an All-Star for the first time since 2019 and won the league’s threepoint contest in Cleveland too.
“It certainly says a lot about the character of him,” Finch tells the Guardian about Towns’ bounceback season. “I think he had two years where his basketball ascension was hijacked through a lot of reasons. So, he’s been able to put that aside. He’s still super young, not even into his prime. And he’s come into this season with the mindset to get back to where he was a few years before that.”
His teammates agree when they talk about the 26-year-old.
“KAT is special, man. There are not too many people that can do what he does on the floor. He’s one of a kind. He’s different. There’s not too much I don’t expect from KAT,” Edwards said. “He’s more than capable. So, it’s no surprise. He’s as good as he wants to be and when he’s playing at that level, we’re as good as we want to be as a team.”
So, what exactly makes Towns so special?
First of all, availability is the best ability, and after missing a combined 55 games over the previous two seasons due to injuries and Covid-related absences, Towns has appeared in all but seven games in 2021-22, becoming the reliable force that the Wolves need him to be.
Secondly, Towns has improved his defensive effort and positioning to the point where he is quarterbacking the 11th best defense in the league this season, up from 28th last season. Towns has always had the size to protect the rim and the fluidity to cover a lot of ground, but with so much strife in Minnesota, he didn’t always play with the vigor and effort that he displays now. Plus, Finch has implemented a new, hyper-aggressive scheme that takes advantage of Towns’ footspeed and length, helping generate more turnovers than any team except the Toronto Raptors and the most points scored off of turnovers in the league.
“We’ve got a great coaching staff, a great coach, and guys who are willing to put winning first,” Towns says about the Wolves buy-in. “I think we’ve done that all year: I think we’ve played with a great determination this year, a great mindset.”
But where Towns is really special, and has been his entire career, is on offense. He’s a seven-footer who moves at the speed of a guard and keeps the ball on a string, allowing him to dribble and contort his body into any space he desires. There are sequences in a game where Towns hits a step-back three on one play, attacks a closeout for a dunk on the next, posts up for a mid-range fadeaway on the next and then eurosteps through multiple defenders to get the and-one at the rim. Finch calls KAT “Cheat Code” and says he is the “most skilled player that I think I’ve ever worked with,” despite that list including talents like James Harden, Nicola Jokic, and Anthony Davis. And Finch shows confidence in Towns by giving him the freedom to take what the defense gives him.
Towns is arguably the best shooting big man of all time, with a career true-shooting percentage of 62.4 that is higher than reigning MVP Jokic and a smidge below Steph Curry. He is currently shooting an outrageous 40.8% on 4.9 three-point attempts per game, taking defensive attention away from his teammates as he sees double and triple-teams that allow his teammates to play in more space. It’s no wonder the Wolves go from scoring like the NBA’s best offense with Towns on the floor to a bottom-five offense without him.
Towns and the Timberwolves have surpassed most peoples’ expectations this season. And regardless of what accolades come his way, or how deep the Wolves go into the playoffs, the most important thing is that Towns – who has gone through so much in the past two years – is back to being himself.
“Fun. Enjoyment. I’m just enjoying the game right now,” Towns says when asked about the biggest difference between this season and in years past.
“I appreciate it more than ever.”