Karl-Anthony Towns has missed the last 26 games after suffering a calf strain in Minnesota’s Nov. 28 loss to the Washington Wizards. There is no timetable for his return and the Timberwolves have been silent about their superstar’s status.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski initially reported that Towns would miss 4-6 weeks and that he could return to game action in mid-January. Now inching closer to February there is no sign of Towns being anywhere close to returning.
But it turns out that Towns’ calf strain was the most serious kind. Strains are graded either 1, 2 or 3, with 3 being the worst. Towns revealed on his Twitch stream Thursday night that he suffered a Grade 3 strain.
“And yeah, Grade 3, man,” Towns said in response to someone in the chat room during his livestream of him playing a video game with Rudy Gobert. “I don’t know what Grade 2 they was trying to talk about.”
According to sports injury sites, a Grade 3 calf strain can also cause a full rupture of muscle fibers and blood vessels. Recovery time is said to be 8-12 weeks. Monday will mark eight weeks since Towns was injured and it’ll have been 12 weeks on Feb. 20.
Towns said he might go live on Twitch again Friday night.
“It may not happen depending on how tomorrow goes, I gotta go see the doctors,” he explained. “I’m going to try to plan the stream. If i don’t stream with a camera, it’s gonna be because of the boot and all that stuff. I just don’t want to show all that stuff and everything.”
