As Karl-Anthony Towns pushes for an NBA title, Minnesota watches with pride

MINNEAPOLIS — Sitting at a high-top table in a downtown watering hole, it took longtime Minnesota Timberwolves fan Maggie Schultz a few possessions of watching Game 2 of the NBA Finals on the big screen before it truly sunk in.

“This is really happening,” she said, quietly. “This makes me so happy just to see Karl out there.”

She was surrounded by other like-minded Wolves fans, those who always hated the big-market New York Knicks and the way the NBA seemed to fawn over them. But her comment wasn’t for the rest of the table to hear. She was talking to herself, having her own quiet moment of personal reflection and gratitude for a player who gave her favorite team everything he had for nine seasons.

Karl-Anthony Towns’ superiority over San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama has been the biggest key to the Knicks taking a stunning 2-0 lead in the series as they pursue their first championship since 1973. This could be yet another bitter pill to swallow for the long-tortured Minnesota sports fan, who has not seen a men’s pro team win a title since 1991. The Timberwolves traded Towns to the Knicks for Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick that became Joan Beringer in 2024, and now they have to watch KAT star in the finals the same way they watched Sam Darnold leave the Vikings and lead the Seattle Seahawks to the Super Bowl in February.

But these Wolves fans were not gathered to lament another lost opportunity. They were there to celebrate one of their own. The Timberwolves chose Towns with the No. 1 pick in 2015, the first time they had ever landed the top pick in a history filled with lottery appearances.

“I’m very proud,” Briana Nichols said. “I feel like a proud mother, so no matter what team he’s on I just want to see him do his best.”

It was more than just what Towns did on the court in a Timberwolves uniform that established the bond. These fans have walked through the fires with him, and the transparency with which he handled all of the ups and downs epoxied him into their lives, like a handprint glued onto the Target Center floor.

They got to see him come to the Twin Cities as a fresh-faced teenager from the University of Kentucky, then watched him deal with all of the highs and lows that come with growing up. He mourned the loss of Flip Saunders, the Wolves coach and executive who drafted Towns, and his mother, Jacqueline, whose death in 2020 put a very prominent face on the COVID-19 pandemic that had gripped the nation. He celebrated winning Rookie of the Year and the 3-point contest at All-Star Weekend, and he helped lead the Wolves to their first Western Conference finals appearance in 20 years when they beat the Denver Nuggets in 2024.

They also saw him have very real struggles on the court. An ill-fated partnership with Jimmy Butler that was supposed to push the Wolves into contention turned into an ugly personality conflict. The Wolves went through five coaches and seven general managers in KAT’s nine seasons.

Through all of the turmoil, Towns was the one constant, and he often bore the brunt of the blame for anything that went wrong in Minnesota.

That’s why this moment feels so special to those who backed him the entire way, who understood that sometimes you are a product of the environment in which you were raised, that the heart underneath all of the struggle and silliness remained pure.

“I’m very excited to watch him,” Schultz said. “I am happy the world is seeing he is the player we were always cheering for. He’s playing the best Karl basketball right now. He’s meant for this.”

It certainly looked that way in his first finals appearance. Towns is averaging 19.5 points, 12.5 rebounds and four assists in the first two games, all while playing superb defense on Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 future of the NBA. There was a time when Timberwolves fans were hearing that moniker applied to Towns. He was the stretch five who was revolutionizing the game. He was the one chosen in the annual survey of NBA general managers as the player they would most like to build around if starting a new team from scratch. Twice.

“It feels fulfilling and validating. Everyone here always believed in KAT, truly believed in him,” said Yury Suponitsky, who had abandoned his Wolves fandom in the years after Kevin Garnett’s trade in 2007 but was drawn back in by KAT’s arrival.

Well, not everyone. And that was the beauty for them of watching Towns roll through these Eastern Conference playoffs and assert himself as the best player in the first two games of the finals. As the years wore on and the Timberwolves couldn’t quite break through the Western Conference, Towns often shouldered the responsibility. Fans near and far picked at the perceived holes in his game, the way he hooked defenders on drives to the basket, the way he argued for foul calls. Tough talkers like Butler, Draymond Green and Shaquille O’Neal succeeded with a certain segment of the fanbase in painting him as soft.

“I just don’t think they actually watch him play,” Schultz said. “Maybe they watched three games a year. Maybe he had an off night. They’re not watching him night in and night out.”

As the criticism mounted — often oddly directed at his manner of speaking or his perceived lack of toughness — his supporters in town only seemed to rally to his defense even more. They also noted how that has seemingly gone away as the wins have piled up in these playoffs, 13 in a row heading into Game 3 on Monday in New York.

“I just feel like all of the fake, zesty, change-his-voice things, I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve seen ever,” said Chloe Abuzeni, Suponitsky’s wife, gritting her teeth in frustration. “It’s a very established thing in culture that you talk to different groups of people differently. That just happens. To have mainstream media spending way too much time at halftime talking about him like that: Do you watch the games? Can we talk about the basketball?”

So when he struggled shooting the ball in the 2024 Western Conference finals against Dallas and then was traded to the Knicks before training camp the following season, there were many who welcomed the move.

“They were all like, ‘I hate KAT,’” Abuzeni said. “I was there fighting them. I was in the trenches every day fighting them. I remember.”

On the night he was traded, Suponitsky was hanging out with friends and not near his phone. Abuzeni was furiously texting him.

“I was by myself,” Abuzeni said, twisting her fingers to mimic sending message after message to her husband. “Text, text, text. No, no, oh my God, I’m not OK.”

Everyone there on Friday night watching Towns was a longtime, educated NBA fan. They understood the salary-cap restrictions the Timberwolves were under with hefty contracts for Anthony Edwards, Towns, Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels. They have seen how several other teams have had to make significant moves in recent years to get out from under the dreaded second apron. They were pleased to see a deal done that landed them two veterans who helped them reach the Western Conference finals for a second straight season in 2025, in addition to a draft pick that landed them a promising big man.

“He was with us since 2015. There was the Flip connection, that part of my heart being with the team. I was sad to see that go,” Schultz said. “I understood. But, it sucks.”

The Timberwolves flamed out in the second round this season, with injuries to Edwards and DiVincenzo and a tough series for Randle and Gobert, ending any realistic bid they had for a third straight conference finals. There certainly is a segment of the fanbase that is upset with the Wolves for trading KAT, even if some of them have only come around after watching his playoff run with the Knicks.

But for the group of die-hards who gathered for Game 2, their disappointment in the way the Wolves’ season ended has been softened because of the joy they are having watching KAT reach heights he has never reached and start to get the flowers they believe he has long deserved. They also know that Towns grew up in New Jersey in a household that loved the Knicks.

If the Wolves had to trade him, the least they could do was send him back home.

“Now, I think this was the best-case scenario for him,” Abuzeni said. “He could go somewhere, and they would be like wait a minute, this guy is the best big-man shooter.

“And yeah, that’s what we’ve been saying! Worst scenario was he goes to a team that’s not a good fit for him and then, yeah, actually he was never good. No, actually he’s been good this whole time, and you all finally see it.”

“He’s shining,” Nichols beamed.

For Towns’ biggest supporters in Minnesota, it has always been about more than basketball. It was about the winter coat drives he organized with a local youth shelter. It was about the movie nights at the practice facility he would host for disadvantaged families around Christmas time that ended with them all going home with bags of gifts. It was about the random acts of kindness that seemingly came out of nowhere, like the donation he made to Kai Glinsek, the manager of a local pizza parlor that drew attention for a “Honk if you love Naz Reid” sign outside its door, when Glinsek’s mother was sick.

“Karl-Anthony Towns has taught me so much about dealing with the loss of my mom two years ago,” Glinsek posted on X after Game 2. “He also donated $5,000 to my mom’s GoFundMe when she was battling pancreatic cancer. He is a great human. Me and my family will forever root for this man. So happy for him.”

Not long after losing his mother, in the grips of COVID, Towns showed up at a rally in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd. He showed up at a youth soccer game after being traded simply to say goodbye. That is the version of Towns these fans remember.

“So many players just show up: Play my game, I go to practice, I get my paycheck and I go home,” Nichols said. “Whereas, KAT and many of our players on the Wolves are embedded into Minneapolis as a city, and they want to see the success of Minneapolis as a city. That is something we don’t see a lot.”

His former teammates are in KAT’s corner, as well. Throughout his run through the East, Towns made several references to keeping an eye on the Wolves in the West, hoping to see them advance through further than he helped take them. He was in touch with Edwards, Gobert, Reid and several others, cheering them on and offering his outside perspective on their series.

“That’s a brother, for sure,” Reid said. “I’ve known him long before the NBA. Just trying to make sure you give the same love to him that he’s reciprocated to us … and obviously want to be there for him as much as I can. He’s been there for me more than you guys know, so, I mean, showing that love is least I can do.”

And for an area of the country that often gets overlooked or belittled for its harsh winters and lack of sporting success, Towns always repped Minnesota to the fullest. He wore Timberwolves gear in public all the time, never took the bait from national media about wanting a bigger market and spent time there in the summers, even when he wasn’t obligated.

“KAT did all the little things that made it seem like he really loved being here,” Abuzeni said. “He also never said anything bad, never complained, publicly talked about how much he loved it. It felt cool a player as good as him loved it here so much.”

Now that the possibility of him winning a championship has become real, the overwhelming sentiment has not been to wallow in the misfortunes of the local team. Instead, they are rejoicing in a player who went through it all here, who never asked for a trade, who engaged with fans and gave back to the community and who sits at or near the top of many individual statistical categories in franchise lore, finally being on the cusp of a championship.

“It very much feels like Kevin Garnett,” Schultz said, “which means he will win.”

Garnett won a championship in his first season in Boston in 2008 after spending 12 years as the face of the franchise in Minnesota. He served as a mentor to Towns early in his career, and now KAT is following in his footsteps.

“Time is a flat circle,” Patrick Fenelon deadpanned.

As he celebrates with his new team, there are so many callbacks to his old home. He still wears No. 32. He still talks about his mother. And he still plays great basketball, which is no revelation to those who have watched him since he was a rookie.

For Suponitsky, seeing Towns leave, flourish and achieve a new kind of respect and status in the league has been satisfying. For him, it also speaks to the deeper meaning that fans find in watching the teams — and the players — they love. This is more than just a ball going through a hoop, for Towns and for these fans. This is about a town that helped raise him not focusing on feeling sorry for itself, but being proud in its role in helping Towns approach the pinnacle.

“For me, it’s about, why do you like basketball? I feel like basketball and sports are a microcosm of the human experience in such a condensed way,” he said. “I don’t know KAT, but I feel like I have learned so much and gone through so many life experiences by watching someone I follow as a fan go through those same experiences.”

If Towns hoists the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy, plenty of Wolves fans will celebrate it as their title, as well.