Note: This is the first in a series of features making a case for each top prospect.
Thousand Oaks, Calif.-- It's a Monday morning, three weeks before the NBA draft, and there's something "off" about Karl-Anthony Towns as he goes through his morning basketball workout at the Spectrum in Thousand Oaks.
Off like, this court is at Skywalker Ranch and George Lucas is in some editing bay making more infamous effect edits to a "Special Edition" of Towns.
Towns is on the court with fellow top prospects D'Angelo Russell and Willie Cauley-Stein. Everyone is awesome, but your eyes keep turning to Towns.
Maybe it's the effortless way that he's draining shots from beyond the NBA 3-point line. Or the flawlessness of the ball handling drills Don MacLean is putting him through. Perhaps it's the way he catches the ball on the wing, makes a perfect pivot and spins and finishes with a huge dunk above the rim.
Or maybe, it's seeing all of those skills usually reserved for guards in a man with size-20 shoes and a 9-foot-5 standing reach. In a league filled with superstars who often are physical wonders -- Towns still stands out.
Big men can't do things Towns can do. They're not supposed to. It's not natural. Yet, for 90 minutes, Towns kept playing more like James Harden than Dwight Howard.
MacLean, the former UCLA superstar and 10-year NBA veteran, walks over to me shaking his head.
"I've been training guys for the draft for 11 years," he said, "and I've never seen anyone his size who can do the things that Karl can do. It's otherworldly."
That's how it feels -- otherworldly. What if Howard could shoot, dribble and move the way Harden does?