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How Should We Evaluate Karl-Anthony Towns’ Preseason Debut?

Chris Hine of the Star Tribune joins the Dane Moore NBA podcast to discuss Towns’ return, the back-court rotation, and Naz Reid.

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Minnesota Timberwolves v Los Angeles Clippers Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

On today’s show, Dane is joined by Chris Hine of the Star Tribune to discuss Karl-Anthony Towns making his preseason debut for the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday evening against Los Angeles Clippers. KAT’s debut takes a lot of the focus, but we also get into Naz Reid stringing together a few strong preseason performances and Bryn Forbes’ shooting standing out as a clear training camp positive.

— Tweaks to Towns’ style of play we noticed in seeing him for the first time down nearly 20 pounds from the weight he played at last season

— Finch switching up defensive coverages by half with KAT (drop scheme vs. high wall scheme)

— Naz Reid making a case to be in the rotation, and standing out in what we typically think of as the Jarred Vanderbilt role on offense alongside Towns

— Forbes really seems to fit alongside both Towns and Gobert, and has succeeded in pretty much any lineup he’s been in thus far

— Have we changed our Nowell/Rivers/Forbes backup 2-guard pecking order? How might it evolve throughout the season?

— The Clippers present an interesting regular season/playoff matchup for the Wolves

(If you can’t access the Spotify player above, click here to listen to the latest episode on Spotify).

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Also, as mentioned during the pod, Dane will be hosting another live event on Monday, October 17th at 6:30pm over at Forgotten Star Brewery. The one and only Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic will also be in attendance, and the duo will be giving away two pairs of tickets to the season opener. If you’re in the area, be sure to stop by and say what’s up to both Dane and Jon.