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The Minnesota Timberwolves will look different this season without Karl-Anthony Towns, but that doesn’t mean they’ll look worse.
The Wolves still went 14-6 without Towns last season and had a net rating of plus-9.0 (90th percentile, via Cleaning the Glass) when Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert were on the floor and Towns was off. Add in another All-Star big man in Julius Randle, some added depth with Donte DiVincenzo, Rob Dillingham, Joe Ingles and others, and Minnesota should be just fine even without KAT.
The Wolves jump up to the No. 2 seed while Edwards gets real MVP consideration.
There’s a lot to like about the Phoenix Suns, especially offensively with a true point guard in Tyus Jones running the show. We’d feel better about the overall balance of the team if Bradley Beal was used as a sixth man, although new head coach Mike Budenholzer has already stated he’ll be in a starting lineup that also features Jones, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant and Jusuf Nurkić.
This leaves a lot of defensive questions to be answered, especially now that Booker will be asked to guard small forwards. This is also the oldest roster in the NBA, with Durant turning 36 last month.
Expect the Suns to fall into the play-in tournament, although if healthy, the star power on this team should be enough for them to win a one-or-two game series to reach the playoffs.
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