His first long NBA season is winding down, a season in which he will win Rookie of the Year, and Karl-Anthony Towns is shooting three-pointers two hours before tip-off and four hours before he hits a game-winning jump hook to defeat the Blazers.

Towns is going through a structured shooting routine with Wolves’ player development assistant Vince Legaraza. Beginning in the right corner, Towns makes his way around the arc shooting catch-and-shoot three-pointers. Towns makes slightly more than he misses and he obsessively grimaces with the wasted chance of every miss. 

When Towns gets to the top of the arc, he begins shooting from a little bit deeper. Towns is simulating shooting a three-pointer as the trailer, presumably after he’s grabbed a rebound or blocked a shot and the Wolves are pushing the ball quickly up the floor. Towns doesn’t quite have logo range yet but his mechanics are consistent and you can see him in the future, maybe at 23 or 24 years old, needing to be defended from 0-30 feet. 

Two years ago here in Portland, Towns was in the Nike Hoop Summit showcasing his perimeter shot for a gym full of NBA general managers and scouts. Perhaps cruelly but probably wisely, that part of Towns’ game was put on cryogenics at Kentucky by John Calipari. You knew Towns could protect the rim and score efficiently around the basket, but it was the likelihood of him becoming a three-point shooter that transformed him into the type of player who sounds mythologically unreal upon description. Towns could become the world's first 60/40/90 scorer on offense.

At that point, Towns physically looked like a healthy Andrew Bynum, who was a legitimate top-3 center in the league for a stretch, but with a better motor and more than just an aspirational three-point shooter. Towns had a little extra weight and was agile but wasn’t an explosive athlete. It surely didn’t seem like he would have the lateral quickness to stay in front of Stephen Curry on the perimeter. Like Curry in 2009, Towns was a basketball savant that needed to get his body to catch up.

But Towns believes the mental part of his game and the refinement of his skills is what has evolved the most over the past two years. 

“The ability to have a higher IQ, to be able to grow my skill-set,” Towns told RealGM. “To also sharpen my tools and my skills.” 

Title runs are temporary and there will come a time when the run of the Golden State Warriors ends. If they are fortunate enough to have it extend long enough, their downward slip may cross with Karl-Anthony Towns going in the opposite direction to become their kingslayer. Towns is the messianic loophole against the Warriors’ smallball lineup of death. Slow-footed big men look upon that Warriors’ lineup apocalyptically because they simply can’t stay on the floor against it. 

Teams switch everything on defense these days and Towns will be able to get a clean three-pointer on a pick-and-pop, or a mismatch in the post on every possession as either the primary play or to generate a quality look late in the shot clock. You’ll have to be as long and athletic as Giannis to have a chance to defend Towns, which means there will only be a small handful of players in the league that can stop him when he fully matures physically.

Jonathan Tjarks says Towns’ ceiling is being a seven-foot version of Draymond Green. Green is the Warriors’ 6’6 center in their death lineup, a diminutive yet lethal shank of a center. There’s a necessary amendment to the comparison though: Towns is a seven-foot version of Draymond with a better perimeter shot. Not only does Towns have all of the ancillary benefits of being seven feet tall, but he has those with that jumper he can shoot over the entire NBA. If Draymond is a shank in a smallball lineup, Towns is an intercontinental nuclear missile.

If you could pick any player to build an NBA franchise with from scratch in 2016, it’s Karl-Anthony Towns. The pick was so obviously Anthony Davis a year ago, so the shift to Towns exaggerates the sometimes ridiculousness and hollowness of these types of proclamations, but Towns takes so many of the virtuosic modern big man qualities Davis possess and goes even further. The difference between Towns and Anthony Davis is Towns is the superior shooter and he has the physicality of a center, which matters on both ends of the floor and suggests he can avoid the type of nagging injuries that have hindered Davis. 

The stakes are high for the Wolves with several young core pieces already in place but Towns' versatility increases the margin for error and gives the front office a number of different ways to play. The Wolves can play five out and destroy teams with all of that space and shooting the same way the Warriors do, and they can play more conventionally against smallball teams by putting Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Shabazz Muhammad into the post. The composition of this lineup can even play these two separate ways with the same five-man unit, out-finessing you or out-grinding you. The lineup is invulnerable to your lineup adjustments. 

With the right coach and scheme, the Wolves can produce one of the league’s better defensive teams with Towns anchoring as rim protector alongside what Ricky Rubio already is on defense and what Wiggins eventually should become. Zach LaVine has some of the tools to be a better defensive player despite his plainly apparent struggles.

Towns is the natural evolution of Tim Duncan, complex footwork and everything plus the modern shooting range, and he has the potential to win the Defensive Player of the Year award that has inexplicably eluded Duncan. Just as Towns will score from 0-30 feet, he can also defend that much ground with how well he can stay in front of guards on a switch. 

“I take a lot of pride in it,” Towns told RealGM when asked about defending guards. “I want to make sure no one scores. That’s the name of the game, to keep them from scoring more than you guys. Anytime I get switched onto an elite player such as a C.J. McCollum, Dame Lillard or Steph Curry, it’s one of those things where I get very excited, I get very giddy. To have a chance to guard the best of the best one-on-one.” 

The core of Towns, Wiggins, Rubio and LaVine feels fairly well set at this point unless they eventually feel they need more shooting from the point guard position or more defense at shooting guard, which means their probable top-5 pick this year will be the final major piece to arrive through the draft to pair in the frontcourt with Towns. That piece can really be the best player available provided he can shoot and play defense; a smallball 4, a conventionally sized power forward or a center would all work next to Towns.

The NBA is scrambling putting their affairs in order to have even a shot of beating the Warriors and whoever the next great smallball team becomes, but Towns is the unstoppable tactical force that can do everything and go anywhere, the queen on the chessboard.