3. Tom Thibodeau is his Coach

Don’t try to twist this into a knock against Tom Thibodeau as a coach. He is a very good coach and has led the team to their first playoff appearance in 13 years. He gets the most out of his players and is regarded as one of the better defensive coaches in the league. However, Tom Thibodeau has a tendency to overplay starters and not rely on his bench enough.

It was an issue when he was in Chicago and it has also been an issue in Minnesota.  When Jimmy Butler played for Thibodeau in Chicago he averaged a career-high 38.7 minutes per game in both the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 seasons.  He was 24 and 25 years old during these two seasons.  Last season in Minnesota at the age of 28, Butler averaged 36.7 minutes per game.

Thibodeau will scale a player’s minutes back a little bit as they get older, but he still plays them a ton of minutes.  One exception is Taj Gibson played a career-high 33.2 minutes last season at the age of 32.

Many people point to Tom Thibodeau’s coaching style of playing starters more minutes as a reason for Derrick Rose’s body failing him as well as the rapid decline of Luol Deng, who averaged 39.4 minutes in 2011-2012 and 38.7 in 2012-2013 under Tom Thibodeau.

Karl-Anthony Towns is obviously a durable player, as he has not missed a game during the first 3 seasons of his career.  However, Derrick Rose was also a healthy player his first 3 seasons in the league where he only missed a total of 5 games. He also averaged over 37 minutes per game in those 3 seasons.

Karl-Anthony Towns sits at a career average of 34.9 minutes per game currently but played 35.6 minutes last season and 37 minutes the season before that.

I’m not saying that Karl-Anthony Towns is destined to have his body fall apart like Derrick Rose’s did after his first 3 seasons, but continuing to play under Tom Thibodeau with how he allocates minutes could maybe send him down that path.

Tom Thibodeau is a very good coach and has clearly helped Karl-Anthony Towns improve.  Towns made his first All-Star appearance last season and was a large reason for Minnesota ending their playoff drought.  Karl-Anthony Towns may love playing for him, but Karl-Anthony Towns needs to keep players like Derrick Rose in the back of his mind.  It could be in his best interest to get his way out of Minnesota.

At the end of the day, if Minnesota had to choose between Tom Thibodeau or Karl-Anthony Towns, a 22-year-old budding superstar, they should choose Towns 10 out of 10 times, but there is no way to know what Minnesota’s thinking is.

Next Up: Reason 2