Anthony Edwards spoke as though it was a given he would be an all-star prior to reserves being announced Thursday evening.

Karl-Anthony Towns seemed to think the opposite was true of his candidacy. He wasn’t watching when the “Inside the NBA” crew revealed the remaining all-stars for the Eastern and Western Conference.

So the Timberwolves’ center was informed of his fourth all-star selection by his father, who ran into the room to tell him.

Towns’ first question for his dad: “Did Rudy make it?”

He did not. Towns and Edwards were selected, while Gobert was snubbed.

“Big fella deserved to be in the All-Star Game and all of this is all possible because of him,” Towns said. “Being No. 1 in the West, you need to have a defensive impact. To have the best defensive player in the NBA definitely gave us better odds of making it. It’s all part of the reason we made it was because of him. So, it felt weird that he’s not there with us. He’s an amazing teammate. Very supportive of us.”

As was evidenced Friday, when Gobert opened his comments by congratulating Towns and Edwards for their selections.

“And when it comes to me, I didn’t even put that much expectation in it. Not the first time I’ve been taken for granted, disrespected about these things,” Gobert said. “I’ve been in this league for a long time, I know how it works. I mean, I’m happy — at the end of the day, I get to get some vacation. The best defender in the world, the No. 1 team in the West and the No. 1 defense in the league, and we get to enjoy the beach during the all-star weekend. Might be a blessing, actually.”

It’s hard to look at the rosters and how they were selected and not think the West coaches essentially chose Towns over Gobert. Towns called Gobert immediately after Thursday’s announcement to discuss just that.

“But I told him to just enjoy his moment. He earned it. Yeah, he was feeling bad. I said, ‘You don’t have to feel bad,’” Gobert said. “It’s not the first time it happened for me and probably not the last time I get disrespected. But I’m in a place now where I’m now where I always see the bigger picture. And once again, when you know your worth, you know what you bring to the table, all the external stuff is not that important. We were joking about it, we were talking about it and I said, ‘at my Hall of Fame speech, I’ll be able to joke about how many times I got to enjoy some extra vacation because I got snubbed for the All-Star Game.’”

It’s not the first time Towns and Gobert have jockeyed for an honor. Towns was also picked for the West all-star roster over Gobert – a three-time all-star in his own right – in 2019. But that summer, it was Gobert who earned all-NBA honors over Towns, which cost Towns a massive pay bump in his contract extension.

“Our whole career we’ve been fighting with each other for those spots. I get all-star, but he gets the all-NBA nod. He gets the extra $40 million, but I get the $50,000 bonus,” Towns said. “We’ve been fighting, been two of the top bigs in the league for a while and we’ve always been fighting with each other for the honors and at the end of the day it’s really different now that we get to both do this together and it’s kind of as teammates. Feels different when you’re being competitive with someone that you want to be, but it’s different when you are competitive with someone you want to see with you there. It’s a totally different feeling.  We all love Rudy here so much, especially myself, I’ll be the first one to sing his praises. It’s a weird feeling. It’s even a weird feeling now talking about All-Star not talking about Rudy in there.”

Gobert said an all-star snub used to be a motivator for him. But he’s reached the point in his career where he knows his worth and what he brings to the table.

“And everything else is out of my control. I’m really happy that we’ve got two guys going there, and I’m happy for all the guys that got selected. It’s cool for them, hope they enjoy it,” Gobert said. “For myself, I’m going to keep doing what I do best. There’s only one person in the world that can do that.”

Which is true. And it doesn’t hurt that Towns – who had to change positions and, to some extent, his game, when Gobert arrived in Minnesota, gets a little shine, as well. Particularly after a calf injury sidelined him for much of last season.

“It’s awesome to be acknowledged for the sacrifices I’ve made to this team, consistently kept reinventing my game for the team every year. Every preseason, every summer, I feel like I go into the gym reinventing who I am as a player, so I can be the best for this team. I’m just happy to be recognized for it, of course,” Towns said. “But also I’m more happy to be healthy enough to be in this position. Really happy just mentally, I stayed with it going through a traumatic injury last year, just stayed with it, continued to work on my body and got myself back to this level.”

And now that he’s been selected, will Towns take another run at the 3-point title he won two years ago?

“I don’t know if I’m going to be shooting threes just on Sunday (that weekend),” Towns said. “I’ll have to figure that out over the next couple of days.”

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