The Nuggets won the NBA championship, which means we’re about to get a long offseason of silly quotes from players around the league.
But it will be difficult for any player to say anything more absurd than what we have already heard from Minnesota Timberwolves big man Karl-Anthony Towns within just a few days of Denver taking home the title.
Towns was recently a guest on a podcast with his former teammate Patrick Beverley. The three-time NBA All-Star shared some fascinating comments about the 2022-23 NBA postseason and it seems like not many people are going to agree with him.
KAT says that Minnesota winning in the play in tournament was more impressive than the Nuggets winning the championship😭😭 pic.twitter.com/AlAJii9280
— Steven Ferraro (@StevenFerraro7) June 14, 2023
Towns started off the segment innocuous enough, noting that his Timberwolves played against the Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs (via The Pat Bev Podcast):
“I just played them in the playoffs. They was telling us our plays, they were like ayo. They weren’t even talking. Ball just goes right to an area and the person was just randomly right there. I’m like, how is this possible?”
But as he continued talking to Beverley, the conversation took a strange turn.
Towns compared the Nuggets to the Timberwolves team that won a play-in game (at the 35-minute, 50-second mark):
“It was more special what we did in Minnesota because we had like, what, a month and then we had training camp and it was like you better figure it all out right now and we really figured it out quick. Everyone including the media and everyone to buy-in to who we was. We had an image. We had a brand of basketball. When you came to Minnesota, we was in your neck of the woods, we knew how we was going to play. You know what you was going to get. You knew what you was going to see. You knew we was going to compete. We got that done quick. Think about it. They had … four years? … We got it done in four months.”
The primary change in the offseason for Minnesota was replacing head coach Ryan Saunders with Chis Finch. The primary difference on the roster was the addition of Beverley, who effectively replaced Ricky Rubio.
When you hear how impressed Towns was by this accomplishment, it makes more sense why Beverley was so excited to win the play-in game against the Clippers in 2022.
Minnesota advanced to the first round of the postseason and while they had a strong battle with the Grizzlies, they were eliminated after a six-game series.
Beverley was then included in a blockbuster trade alongside Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Leandro Bolmaro, Walker Kessler (the No. 22 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft) and several future first-round picks in order to land Rudy Gobert.
