Timberwolves Center Karl Anthony-Towns Tests Positive for COVID-19

The Minnesota Timberwolves center, who has lost seven family members to COVID-19, tested positive before his team's game against Memphis was canceled.

Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl Anthony-Towns announced Friday that he tested positive for COVID-19.

Towns posted on Twitter that he received the call that he tested positive prior to the postponement of the Timberwolves and Grizzlies basketball game.

🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/bk0tzC6jiV

— Karl-Anthony Towns (@KarlTowns) January 15, 2021

"I pray every day that this nightmare of a virus will subside and I beg everyone to continue to take it seriously by taking all of the necessary precautions," Towns said. "We cannot stop there spread of tis virus alone, it must be a group effort by all of us.

"It breaks my heart that my family and particularly my father and sister continue to suffer from the anxiety that comes along with the diagnosis as we know all too well what the end result could be."

The Timberwolves center revealed in December that he lost seven family members because of complications from COVID-19, including his mother Jacqueline Cruz-Towns in April 2020.

"I've been through a lot, obviously starting out with my mom," Towns said in December. "Last night I got a call that I lost my uncle. I feel like I've been hardened a little bit by life and humbled."

The 25-year-old posted an emotional video in March about his 58-year-old mother being placed on a ventilator and put into in a medically induced coma because of the coronavirus before she died.

"I've seen a lot of coffins in the last seven months," Towns said. "I have a lot of people who have—in my family and my mom's family—gotten COVID." 

Wolves President of Basketball Ops., Gersson Rosas, says it is "heartbreaking" that KAT tested positive, especially with what the Towns family has been through with COVID-19. "It's a lesson for all of us. Basketball is a microcosm of society right now...this virus is powerful"

— Malika Andrews (@malika_andrews) January 15, 2021

Before the start of the 2020-21 season, Towns hadn't competed in an NBA game since February 2020, when he injured his wrist. Minnesota didn't qualify to compete in the NBA bubble in Orlando.

The Timberwolves-Grizzlies game being postponed due to contact tracing within Minnesota's franchise marks the 13th postponement of this season, just hours after the Wizards-Cavaliers games on Sunday and Monday were postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak on the Wizards. 

Over 401,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19, according to the CDC. Minnesota has reported a total of 425,985 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19.