On Friday afternoon, ESPN‘s Zach Lowe and Brian Windhorst — two of the best NBA reporters in the business — sat down to do a podcast to discuss various topics surrounding the NBA playoffs and the offseason.
One of their topics — albeit for no more than 45 seconds — was Karl-Anthony Towns, mainly as a guy to whom the Celtics should look at throwing a trade offer.
How did this happen? To start, let’s look at the exact conversation:
Brian Windhorst: “Has anybody noticed what’s going on in Minnesota with Karl-Anthony Towns and that organization?”
Zach Lowe: “Darren Wolfson alluded to a lot of it on a podcast a couple weeks ago. I said on a podcast recently that I just have a gut feeling something crazy is gonna happen there this summer. It’s not in a good place right now internally.”
Windhorst: “If I were the Celtics, I would make a quiet call to Minnesota.”
While Lowe and Windhorst are very plugged in in their own respective rights, the only true reference made in the entire conversation is to a previous podcast by Wolfson, a 1500 ESPN and KSTP reporter and longtime Minnesota sports journalist. Windhorst even goes on to say the whole thing is “unrealistic.”
But once a sliver of that conversation made it onto the social media airwaves, its speed to going viral was as impressive as KAT’s 3-point percentage this season.
Within hours, rumors and trade scenarios were being spread and aggregated all across the internet. Even current NBA players were jumping in on the conversation.
One was a former college teammate.
Another was a former — and quite artsy — Timberwolves teammate.
But as fun as rumors are in the offseason, and even if there actually is some friction within the organization, this particular matter will never turn into anything more that chatter.
Towns is set to sign a max extension — thus avoiding free agency, where he’d be restricted anyway — this summer, and Tom Thibodeau has absolutely no reason to move him. Unless he wants to delay his extension — something never done by young stars still on their rookie deals — there’s nothing to look at here.
But if that’s not enough, the original source of all the commotion chimed in late Friday evening to help calm the storm.
One was even a response to a trusty Zone Coverage reporter and podcaster.
This all started when two of the best NBA reporters harmlessly brought up some trade ideas in the offseason. It turned into something much bigger than it should have ever become.
The NBA offseason has begun for the Wolves, but trade rumors surrounding their young star shouldn’t be part of it.
Listen to Tim on Wolves Wired!
