By Dan Ferrara, NBA International
Being the youngest player to ever unanimously win the Rookie of the Year award is impressive, but the numbers only get more incredible for Karl-Anthony Towns when you delve deeper.
The 20-year-old center didn’t disappoint in his first season with the Minnesota Timberwolves, averaging 18.3 points, 10.5 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game. He became the eighth rookie in NBA history to accomplish those statistics and the other seven combined for 65 All-Star appearances. Not to mention that Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson and Alonzo Mourning are current Hall of Famers and Tim Duncan, arguably the greatest power forward ever, will soon join them.
Towns joined an incredible list of some of the best big men in NBA history with his rookie season to say the least. He also appeared in all 82 games, something that is becoming more rare in the NBA, particularly among players who only played one season of college and aren’t used to playing big minutes for six months.
Incredibly, Towns also avoided hitting the “rookie wall,” a period during the middle of the season when first-year studs generally run out of gas. Often times it’s more than a lack of energy, as the league’s best defenders have now seen you once and know what moves to try and stop. As their tough defense limits your strengths, there’s often an adjustment period of fine-tuning your game to counter their measures.
No such period occurred in Towns’ rookie year, his two best scoring months of the season were actually February and March. Not counting his two-game October, February was also his best rebounding month, averaging 11.8 per game.
It’s incredible to think that he will only get better in his second year under new Wolves head coach Tom Thibodeau, who is a defensive mastermind who should be able to extrapolate all of Towns’ talents. Towns’ block totals should rise and he may even become a better passer, as center Joakim Noah was one of the key distributors in the Bulls’ offense when Thibodeau was at the helm. It’ll truly be fascinating to see how Towns improves for an encore this season, but one thing is certain – he had one of the best rookie years ever for a big man.
