Minnesota Timberwolves center/forward Karl-Anthony Towns has won the 2023-24 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award, Andscape has learned.
An NBA selection committee chose Towns “due to his dedication to pursue social justice and uphold Abdul-Jabbar and the league’s decades-long values of equality, respect and inclusion,” an NBA source said. Other finalists included Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo, New Orleans Pelicans guard CJ McCollum, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Lindy Waters III and LA Clippers guard Russell Westbrook.
Helping Towns’ candidacy was that he has been an advocate for voting rights. The four-time NBA All-Star played a key role in the passage of Minnesota’s Restore the Vote bill (H.F.28), a bipartisan legislation that restored the right to vote to more than 55,000 formerly incarcerated people in March 2023. Towns is executive producer and an investor in the documentary Forgiving Johnny, a short film that delves into how digital transformation enabled change in the complex legal justice system. He also provided funding to Ava DuVernay’s film Origin and is a board member of the National Basketball Social Justice Coalition.
Towns is expected to be given the award before Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets on Friday in Minneapolis.