Karl-Anthony Towns is widely acknowledged as one of the best prospects in the NBA entering his third season in the league. In the results of the annual survey of NBA General Managers, Towns received remarkably high praise, as did the rest of the Minnesota Timberwolves for their excellent offseason transactions.
Towns was the player GMs most wanted to build their teams around for the second straight year (29 percent), but his gap over Giannis Antetekounmpo (21 percent) was not nearly as large as last year’s gap over Kevin Durant (48 percent to 21 percent). He also was listed as the player most likely to have a breakout season (21 percent), with Andrew Wiggins (7 percent) coming in at fifth in that category.
However, those are things you would expect of a young, still somewhat unproven talent. The unexpected mark was Towns being listed as the best center in the NBA. Yes, best. His 28 percent was only slightly higher than Anthony Davis (24 percent) and Marc Gasol (21 percent), but that is a remarkable statement of confidence in Towns’ abilities. Towns was also the fourth highest voted in the best power forward category (7 percent).
Other than Towns, Minnesota’s offseason acquisition of Jimmy Butler and other moves were highly rated.
GMs had the Timberwolves with the third best overall moves this offseason at 14 percent (Oklahoma City ran away with this at 43 percent) and Jimmy Butler was second in which player acquisition would make the biggest impact at 17 percent (Paul George won with a whopping 59 percent of this vote).
General managers, like the media and fans, also have high expectations for this team. For the second straight year, Minnesota was the conclusive winner in which team GMs expect to be the most improved (57 percent last season, 69 percent this season). One hopes that this season will end with a much bigger improvement than last season.
You can find the complete survey here, for all the non-Wolves-related things like how much everyone loves Golden State.
*Of note when viewing these results: “The GMs responded to 47 different questions about the best teams, players, coaches, fans, and offseason moves. General managers were not permitted to vote for their own team or personnel. Percentages are based on the pool of respondents to that particular question, rather than all 30 GMs.”
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