The injury to Karl-Anthony Towns will do nothing but complicate an already trying season for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
After the first quarter of the regular season, it’s pretty safe to say that the Minnesota Timberwolves have been nothing short of disappointing. And it’s hard to see them recovering in the second quarter of the season, even less so considering that they’ll have to be able to do so with Karl-Anthony Towns out of the lineup.
Even though there is optimism that KAT may have avoided a serious injury, he’s still expected to miss several weeks with a calf strain and that’s far from an ideal situation for a Wolves team that still hadn’t found its footing playing together.
The Minnesota Timberwolves have been a mess so far this season
Entering the season, many believed that the Wolves would be a top 4 or 5 team in the Western Conference. After going all-in on Rudy Gobert during the offseason, that should, at the very least, be the floor for the Wolves. Inside that organization, that should be the mindset. If not, I’m not really sure what the thinking was with the move for Gobert.
Twenty-one games into the season, the Wolves are in a difficult situation. They are 10-11 and currently outside the top 10 in the Western Conference standings. Not ideal. They have an uphill to climb and it’s hard to see them making many strides without arguably their best player on the floor.
At the very least, KAT’s injury will complicate this season for the Wolves. Even if he just misses a month, which seems unlikely for a big with this specific injury, the Wolves are more likely to continue to lose ground on the top seeds rather than gaining anything.
If the Wolves do play better with only one of their two bigs in the lineup, that will only bring about bigger headaches that I’m not sure the front office is ready to deal with.
But maybe something does click for the Wolves with KAT out of the lineup. Maybe they figure out how to utilize Gobert and then can seamlessly re-insert Towns back into the lineup and everything is fine for the Wolves.
I suppose that is a possibility. But I can’t help but believe that what’s far more likely is that either the Wolves continue to spiral downward or they realize the Towns-Gobert duo is simply not going to work.
An already complicated season for the Wolves just got even more muddled. The next few weeks for this franchise will tell us a lot.