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In the most obvious NBA award news this side of Stephen Curry winning MVP this year, the Associated Press is reporting that Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns will be named 2016 Rookie of the Year during a Monday press conference.
Towns lived up to his billing as the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft, averaging 18.3 points, 10.5 rebounds and 1.7 blocked shots per game while starting all 82 games for Minnesota. He was also named Western Conference Rookie of the Month all six months the award was handed out, so Towns should be the unanimous league-wide Rookie of the Year when the voting results come out.
Towns put aside any concerns about the proverbial “rookie wall”, averaging 21.3 points and 11.2 rebounds per game while making nearly 55 percent of his field goals over the final 31 games of the season. Towns was always quick to dismiss his individual success, as reflected in these quotes near the end of the season.
“People who know me know I’m never satisfied. I’ve never felt like I’ve had a good game,” Towns said near the end of the season. “It’s hard to get me to even say I played good. That’s just in me. I’m just never satisfied. A lot of my friends get annoyed by it. I’m never happy about anything, playing-wise. I always think there’s things I messed up on, things I should’ve done differently that could’ve A) made us win or B) made the win easier.”
Towns is the second straight Rookie of the Year for the Timberwolves, with Andrew Wiggins taking home the award in 2015. The Timberwolves won 13 more games than they did in 2014-15, and with Tom Thibodeau now in place as head coach, a 12-season playoff drought looks close to ending.
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