With rumors surrounding Karl-Anthony Towns‘ future with the Timberwolves, the All-Star big man addressed his mind-set and status in Minnesota with reporters on Friday after he returned to action.
Towns missed 15 games due to a knee injury and his return was delayed after a brief illness. In that time, rumors of Towns potentially being unhappy in Minnesota became prominent, even as the team reportedly explores a trade for point guard D’Angelo Russell.
Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic was among those to speak to Towns about his future after Towns posted 27 points in 28 minutes in the loss Friday.
Here are the highlights of Towns’ post-game chat:
On returning from his first extended absence due to injury:
“The game of basketball is a very fragile thing. I don’t like playing with it. I had to take my time, had an unfortunate setback with getting sick. But if I could really say I’m just so happy the game of basketball is here for me. It was some great therapy for me today. I needed the game more than ever. It allowed me to put my mind somewhere else.”
Rumors of his unhappiness in Minnesota:
“I’m here to be a Minnesota Timberwolf. Very fortunate I have a head coach like Ryan (Saunders), a president and friend like Gersson (Rosas). I’m not worried about all that nonsense. Whatever we have to deal with in house, we’ll deal with in house, but this ain’t the circus like it used to be. This is something that’s going to be done as a family. If we have a problem or anything, we’ll deal with it internally. We won’t have any external forces here adding anything.”
On his focus for the remainder of the season:
“I trust my teammates. They did an amazing job. (Gorgui Dieng has) been fantastic. Noah (Vonleh), Naz (Reid) has come up and played really well. Just gotta find ways to get wins. I’m back now. So I gotta find ways to implement myself into the winning formula.”
