Karl-Anthony Towns has accepted a super-max deal worth 190 million US dollars over five years from the Minnesota Timberwolves, making him the highest paid center in the league. Considering that his teammate Andrew Wiggins signed a five-year, 148-million-US-dollar deal in 2017, at least the two former No. 1 picks are being well paid.

Unfortunately, this may not be good news for the Timberwolves. The Towns contract extension means the departure of Jimmy Butler is unavoidable, since Towns previously sent a message through his agent that he does not want to share the locker room with the former Bulls guard, whose addition last season helped Minnesota return to the NBA playoffs after 14 years. 

It's hard to say that the Timberwolves made a mistake by choosing Towns over Butler since the former is younger and more promising. However, Towns has been a disaster in defense since he joined the league in 2015 and he has not improved. Meanwhile, though he has delivered some attractive numbers on offense in the regular season, in the playoffs against the Houston Rockets, Clint Capela made Towns look like a bench player and Capela signed a new five-year contract worth 90 million US dollars.

Towns is not the Timberwolves' only problem, considering that he can at least contribute to the team's offense. Wiggins, who was seen as the next LeBron James with his remarkable athleticism before joining the NBA, is now playing, in many Chinese fans' eyes, like a 50-year-old man. According to ESPN's Zach Lowe, motion-tracking cameras recorded that the 23-year-old forward "runs fast" in only 4.8 percent of his total minutes on the court. That's in the bottom 10 in the NBA and should belong to 7-footers, not the 6-foot-8 Wiggins.

Furthermore, neither Wiggins nor Towns led the T'wolves back to the playoffs without the help of Butler, who is on the way out. According to The Athletic, Butler is allowed to miss the team's media day on Monday and will not participate in the start of the training camp on Tuesday either, a signal that Minnesota is ready to send Butler away.

Though the team's head coach, Tom Thibodeau, does not want Butler to leave, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor said otherwise. ESPN reported that Taylor at the league's board of governors meeting sent the following message: Butler is available, anyone interested could contact Taylor himself.

It's true that both Towns and Wiggins are still young and they can still wait, especially when they know that they will receive so much money in the future. Nonetheless, it's hard to say if the Timberwolves can be patient. The team has been young for over a decade from Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio to today's two overall first picks, but has not seen much in return. Minnesota as a small market is never attractive to star-level free agents. With one max deal and one super-max deal on their payroll over the next four years, the Timberwolves will find it increasingly difficult to improve their franchise. At least now the playoffs seem more remote than last season.

(Top picture: Andrew Wiggins (22) and Karl-Anthony Towns (32) of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves /VCG Photo)