It can be easy to feel an intense swing of emotions watching a bad performance from a great player. Fans who have spent countless hours watching their favorite team play and learning details about the players through interviews, begin to feel subconsciously like we know the players on a personal level. Our brains lump together our perceptions of players like data points on a stat sheet until we feel we have a large enough sample size. We then use that data to build an image in our brains of who we think a player “is” as a person.
We develop completely one-sided relationships with players we love (or hate) despite the fact that we’ve never met them. We do it despite knowing on a human level that even if we were to meet a player, one conversation, much less a quote or a soundbite, hardly gives us enough information to conclude that we “know” them. And yet, people feel entitled to use their itchy Twitter fingers to make conclusions about who a player “is” and state our limited perceptions of their personality as facts to the world.
This psychological phenomenon is known as a parasocial relationship. The term was coined in 1957 by sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in their article “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction.” The article analyzes how people come to develop “the illusion of a face-to-face relationship with the performer” they are watching or listening to in television, movies, radio, and other forms of media.
In the 21st century, the phenomenon has become an even more prominent part of the zeitgeist. The advent of accessible internet allows us to find information about our favorite celebrities in a matter of seconds. Social media platforms thrive on people sharing information about their lives on a regular basis, and their business model essentially relies on parasocial relationships to keep consumers engaged with content creators. As a result, people’s attachments to celebrities have intensified because they can constantly keep track of their activities and comment on content while imagining that the celebrity will hear them.
Of course, parasocial relationships are a natural part of fandom, and they are not inherently bad. Emotional attachment to a player can be invigorating when you watch young love blossom into a deeper trust. I feel warmth in my heart and a sense of pride every time I watch Anthony Edwards nail a clutch step-back three or hit an over-the-shoulder layup in traffic. I get joy from fantasizing about the upper limits of his ability, imagining Ant Man on billboards in Time Square looking like the superhero I believe him to be. I brag about him to non-Timberwolves fans who question Ant as if he was my teammate and we knew each other growing up.
This is all despite the fact that I’ve never met Ant in my life, and my only real connection to him is that he plays for my hometown team, and I want him to help us win. Falling in love with watching a player is part of the beauty of sports, and watching a young player shine as you stan for them on the internet gives us the pride of feeling like we stood up for someone we love.
That parasocial relationship can also have a negative effect however. Karl-Anthony Towns has been on the Minnesota Timberwolves for seven seasons. Fans who have followed KAT since he was drafted have had plenty of opportunities to build an image in their head of who they think Karl is. They’ve begun to act like they know Karl on a personal level, and as a result feel entitled to say he will never change and should be traded.
Sure, Towns’ occasional inability to ignore bad reffing can be a detriment to his team, and every once in a while it leads to a tough loss or a complete meltdown. However, it’s unfair to fixate on those moments given that so many other nights during KAT’s career he was by far the best and most consistent player on the Timberwolves. Ant may be on track to be better than KAT in the next several years, but the Wolves still have to play games while we wait for that to happen. The future is not certain, and it certainly is not the present.
Need I remind you that KAT led the team in almost every counting stat this year including points per game (24.6), rebounds (9.8), blocks (1.1), effective field goal percentage (.591), and three point percentage (.410)? Must I reiterate that he is currently the 3rd best center in the NBA in any given season, and will likely be recognized as the Third Team All-NBA center this year as a result? If he were any better he’d be competing for MVP awards with Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. Those are generationally dominant players who have changed the NBA with how they play. Do we really want to trade the 3rd best center in the NBA just because he’s not quite an MVP-level player?
People like to argue that KAT can’t be the No. 1 option on a championship team, and should be traded to a place where he can be the No. 2 or the 1b. However, even if you believe that, it still isn’t a reason to trade him now. No. 2s are incredibly valuable and hard to find. The Milwaukee Bucks had to trade Eric Bledsoe, George Hill, three future first-round picks, and two additional pick swaps to acquire Jrue Holiday to be the No. 2 or 3 along with Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Khris Middleton. The Wolves would be moving backwards by trading away a player who is presently a top-tier complementary leader and hasn’t even tapped his full potential yet.
Towns is only 26 and still has time to get better. He has improved a ton on defense in the last year in part because Chris Finch’s scramble scheme allows KAT to utilize his quickness and stop defenders before they get to the lane, rather than forcing him to protect the rim, which hasn’t always been his strong suit. Towns also added a new dimension to his offensive game this year by perfecting his face-up drives to the lane, which is an important part of Giannis and Embiid’s dominance as centers. We have watched KAT improve every year since he came into the league, and Finch has shown he can help KAT reach his untapped potential. There’s no reason to think that Towns can’t continue to get better in the next several years, especially now that he has a good coach.
In addition, an important part of player development is playing competitive basketball. Lessons are learned in a playoff series against a tough opponent. Towns is having hard games because of the attention he’s being paid, and because coaches are playing chess by tailoring lineups specifically to stop him. Ty Lue discovered he could slow down KAT by putting two quick bigs on him during the regular season, so now every team is going to attempt to use it in the playoffs.
Towns was so dominant in Game 1 that the Grizzlies had to change their defensive identity to counter him by benching their starting center Steven Adams. The amount of effort teams expend to stop KAT should be evidence enough of how valuable he is as a player. Even the greatest players take time to adjust to new strategies being thrown at them, especially when a team creates a whole gameplan to slow you down.
At the very least, the front office needs to give this team another year to play together. The working theory last year was that when KAT, Ant, and DLo are all healthy, the Timberwolves would be a hard team to stop. This season they proved that theory by winning 46 games, making the playoffs, and being one of the best offenses in the league. Why would you blow up a playoff team with good vibes and an incredibly high ceiling just because one player had a couple of bad games?
If anything, I’d assert that the Wolves are only about two steps away from being a championship contender as is. If Ant becomes the All-NBA player that we think he can be, and the Timberwolves get one more big who can help KAT protect the rim and rebound, they could become a dynasty. It would be foolish to trade KAT after the best year of his career unless a team like the Phoenix Suns wanted to trade Minnesota Deandre Ayton, Mikal Bridges, and two first-round picks. And that’s just not gonna happen. It’s time for us to take a step back and look at how much KAT has improved every year, rather than falsely claiming we “know” he’ll never change.
