In the NBA, it’s all about how you sell your summer. From players to front offices, everyone wants to talk up the job they did to improve their team’s prospects of winning the following year.
If you’ve listened to any interviews with Chris Finch or Gersson Rosas from Las Vegas, you’ll know Karl-Anthony Towns “is having a terrific summer.” According to the Wolves heavyweights, he’s looking set to recapture the form he had before a spate of injuries, a global pandemic, and the death of his mother — the toughest of years for anyone.
In the first 25 games of the 2019-20 season, KAT played 23 games, averaging 26.5 points while sneakily averaging 4.4 assists a night and annihilating opposing bigs on the glass. The Wolves went 10-11 in those games — not great — in a season that would produce only another nine wins and 42 excruciating losses.
When the Big KAT finally returned from a wrist injury to play in 10 of those losses and one of those wins, the team was in a downhill spiral. He played some games with ridiculous stat lines (see his 40-piece in a loss to the Chicago Bulls) but never looked as good as he did while putting up 37 points, 15 rebounds, and eight assists in Charlotte. That night, our patron saint Jim Pete described him as “the big kid playing against the little kids.” He did. It was an and-one-fest.
Now in the summer of 2021, with his reputation as one of the league’s best big men currently cratered due to the losing ways of the team, KAT is preparing for what will hopefully be his first consistent run of simultaneous good health with the Wolves core of Anthony Edwards, D’Angelo Russell, and Malik Beasley.
If the ‘Gram is anything to trust (which we know it isn’t, but hear me out), Towns is looking as good as he ever has in terms of the body he is bringing into the season. The man is ripped. He’s been in the weight room a lot, but not in the Hassan Whiteside, “so big I get clumsy kind of way.” He looks like an Olympic swimmer: lean but strong. He looks ready to be the big kid on the court again.
All of that said, it is a fool’s errand to judge how successful a summer is before October. The team wants everyone to think things are running smoothly in lieu of any roster changes that parts of the fanbase were clamoring for, so, of course, they are saying all the right things.
We can always choose to be optimistic, and there is no reason not to be. Again, going off social media, KAT seems to be in a good place mentally and physically — something that surely couldn’t have been said for at least a year. His best ball comes when he is relaxed and happy. Viewing a quiet summer in the front office as trust in what this group of players can do when all they are healthy must be a nice feeling for those involved.
Aside from propaganda and pandering, summer is for resetting. KAT seems to have done that. Ant has been baptized in the refreshing waters of Lake Minnetonka, and DLo is putting work in on the defensive end, according to Finch and Rosas. I’ll believe that last bit when I see it, but if the team is coming in with a good mentality, it’s been a successful offseason in my book.
