How Has the Timberwolves’ Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert Pairing Graded Out?

On today’s show, Dane is joined by Jace Frederick from the Pioneer Press to look into the numbers behind the Minnesota Timberwolves’ first 14 games of the Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert experiment. Dane and Jace look at how Towns and Gobert have thus far graded out on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball analytically, and discuss how fair those catch-all metrics have been to the still relatively small sample size. Before Jace joins, Dane starts the episode with a solo film review of Kyle Anderson’s recent play.

— Kyle Anderson film review

— What is going into KAT grading out as a 26th percentile defender thus far this season? Is it entirely scheme dependent? How much of a factor is KAT’s health in his defensive performance?

— What is going into KAT grading out as a 94th percentile offensive player thus far this season? Do any specific players help KAT out on the offensive end from a lineup/numbers perspective?

— What is going into Gobert grading out as a 65th percentile defender thus far this season? How might his teammates be contributing to this given the time needed to get comfortable with a drop scheme?

— What is going into Gobert grading out as a 66th percentile offensive player thus far this season? How can we expect that grade to change as his teammates become more comfortable with him out there on the floor?

— What might crunch time offense look like once the Wolves start finding themselves in crunch time situations? Is this where D’Angelo Russell’s value as a high-IQ player can shine through?

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