Chris Finch remains 'extremely confident' pairing Towns with Gobert
Minds will be spinning for the next 4-5 months as the Timberwolves embrace a thorny offseason and attempt to develop or reconstruct a roster that failed to meet the sky-high expectations that were birthed with the Rudy Gobert trade last summer.
The result of giving up five picks and players for Gobert was a 42-40 regular season, spot in the play-in tournament and quick ejection from the NBA playoffs at the hands of the Denver Nuggets.
On paper, Minnesota had one of the most talented rosters in the league. Anthony Edwards took his third-year leap and could soon be one of the best players in the NBA. Jaden McDaniels was voted by anonymous players as one of the league's premiere defenders and underrated young stars. Mike Conley's arrival at the trade deadline brought experience and Naz Reid was a dynamic big off the bench.
But the blend of Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert fumbled through the first 20% of the season before Towns suffered a catastrophic calf injury that knocked him out of the lineup for 52 games. Upon his return, Gobert seemed to be a shell of the dominant presence he was for a decade in Utah and Towns was more of a detriment than a plus for the majority of the playoff series against Denver.
Was it Towns meeting the public narrative that he no-shows in playoff games or was it a factor of him not being as explosive since the injury and uncomfortable playing power forward with Gobert at center? It's all up for debate, but Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch wasted no time in reaffirming his belief that playing two bigs together when the rest of the league is trending smaller will work.
"Listen, they're both really incredibly good basketball players. With the skill level KAT has, there's no reason basketball-wise that it shouldn't work," said Finch minutes after Denver eliminated Minnesota. "Theres lots of things we could talk about why the learning curve was so steep, but the most important thing is we have a big enough body of work I think we can properly evaluate it so I still remain extremely confident that we'll be able to maximize those guys."
In fairness to Finch, the Towns injury killed progress of learning how to play together. For Towns, he was never able to adjust to his new role. Including the playoffs, Towns and Gobert played just 32 games together.
"Obviously, basketball to the side, he's a great teammate. He's a great spirit," said Towns of Gobert. "It's just going to take a little more time. Obviously, I got hurt. For me alone, it was a big transition. Haven't played four since college, been known for playing five in this league for seven years, coming into eighth year and obviously things had to change. Just more time with each other."
"All of us together, we grew in knowing how to find Rudy, how to get him involved, where his spots are," Towns continued. "Through time we found him pretty well. But with the offseason we'll find him in better positions and even put him in better positions to succeed."
In five playoff games and 119 minutes on the court together, Towns and Gobert had a 114.0 offensive rating and a 122.1 defensive rating. That's not good. But that's hard to judge because Jaden McDaniels missing with an injury could've affected them dramatically, and that certainly appears to be the case because in 27 games together during the regular season, when McDaniels was healthy, Towns and Gobert played 529 minutes together and posted an offensive rating of 106.2 and a defensive rating of 105.6.
If more time together and a healthy McDaniels means they get an offensive rating representative of what they posted in the playoffs and a defensive rating closer to their regular season, then they would indeed be a formidable duo like Finch envisions.
That is, of course, if the big bosses at the Timberwolves want to run it back and see what happens. Are Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore on board with running it back?
If there is a desire to move in a different direction, a trade of Gobert for pennies on the dollar or a deal that moves Towns and his supermax contract could be options for a fresh approach, though doing so would require general manager Tim Connelly punting on his signature move a year after pulling the trigger.
