Towns: Merged Threads

[SDceltGuy]

great player, but really questionable attitude. Does not seem like a fun guy to play with. Body language is terrible.

Not saying I wouldn't be interested, but this isn't an Anthony Davis situation. He has some real question marks.

There is something off with him and is not someone I would want to build a franchise around.  Good stats, bad team. 

[Phantom255x]

Love KAT, but no. Not at the expense of 1 or even 2 of Brown/Tatum/Hayward + a bunch of picks.

[shut_the_gate]

I like KAT but honestly when has a team won anything with marquee center who can’t defend? Not only that but wasn’t happy before Butler came, when Butler was there and after Butler left. He seems like he lacks leadership skills and is emotionally immature.

I won’t want him for the package it’ll eventually cost, which atm isn’t even a discussion because Wolves aren’t moving him.

[Somebody]

He's obviously not nearly the defender Davis is though.  Not sure if that's just a focus / effort issue or something more.  Towns was expected to be a very good defensive anchor when he came into the league.

But that's the issue, while they have similar offensive value one is an elite defensive C and the other is clearly a bad defensive C. Given how much important team defense is at the C position I don't think I would want to sell the farm for Towns.

He just doesn't show consistent effort at that end for more than a month a year.

How much of that is his team?  He has the best DRTG on the Wolves (tied with Covington).  Covington is the only + defender on the entire team.  I do wonder if Towns was a team that wasn't a sieve in the backcourt how his defense might actually look.  I mean Covington was a DPOY contender last year and looks fairly average this year because the team as a whole is filled with awful defenders.  Get Towns away from Wiggins and company, and I'm not so sure he doesn't become a + defender (not elite, but certainly better than average).  He has all of the physical tools and has solid steal and shot blocking numbers, which shows his instincts, timing, and soft hands.  Put Towns on a good defensive team and I think his defensive liability disappears into a cloud of dust.   

^this. I don't confuse him for a great (or even good) defender, but his defence is clearly at least passable for an NBA team looking to compete. Obviously there's more to defence than what Moranis posted (individual DRTG and raw stock numbers are awful defensive metrics), but Towns passes the eye test and isn't anything really bad in play tracking statistics (RAPTOR is still kind of a meme at this point but it still gives you some valuable information).

I dunno about your eye test, but Towns is in general rather lazy, in the wrong position, and just plan slow on defense. That's what I see when I watch the Wolves.

The numbers back it up over the course of his career he's been a negative defensive impact player, despite his excellent physical tools.

He's good enough on offense to compete with him on your team, but having a C who doesn't player adequate team defense is a huge problem to overcome in the playoffs when you're facing the best teams who have great players to attack him.

Yeah I disagree. I think you're setting an incredibly high standard for big men on defence - big men aren't poor defenders just because they can't toggle from one man to another in a split second with a high revving motor that never sputters. Those defensive numbers are affected by his teammates, most of which are poor defenders. If anything it's an indictment on how poorly the Wolves have done the past few years to build around him.

Eh I disagree with the last bit as well. His defence isn't anything special but he's significantly more playable than Kanter against teams that attack bigs, and we're actually playing Kanter significant minutes right now because of our excellent defensive wings that can recover quickly in the drop zone. I don't think he'd give us any problems on defemce in the playoffs unless we face another 2017/2018 GSW type of team that can pick apart any big man.