Deep Dive: Straight Voltage
Karl-Anthony Towns is cutting down on the wildness and honing in on the domination.
Stray voltage.
Monikered by Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch, it’s been the venomous serpent slithering underneath all of the brilliance that exudes from freshly-crowned All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns’ game. A devilish Jekyll and Hyde scenario where all of his unique and overwhelming talents can and have been undermined in an instant by his tendency to let his emotions boil over and gush into every part of his game.
If you’ve seen the wild passes, the offensive fouls consorting and mingling with flopping and flailing for calls of his own, and the out-of-control drives, then you’ve felt the powerful bite of stray voltage. The Timberwolves have been a resounding success story this season, but those ever-gnashing jaws have been a consistent sour spot.
Lately, there has been less stray voltage. Make no mistake, there still has to be voltage, without it the 26-year-old isn’t going to continue steering the Timberwolves to their first playoff birth since 2018 and just their second since 2004. This latest iteration of Towns has been pumping out straight voltage, though, and when he is burying his on-court demons and serving up hearty helpings of straight voltage, he immediately vaults himself into a very select echelon of players. The type of player who can throw a team on his shoulder and will them to victory on any given night against any given opponent.
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