Towns donates ROY Kia in honor of late coach Saunders

Minnesota Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns accepted his NBA Rookie of the Year award Monday with a heavy heart.

Towns became just the fifth unanimous selection after a dominant first season and made sure to pay his respects to his late head coach Flip Saunders, who passed away in October of cancer at age 60.

In honor of Saunders, Towns donated the Kia he won as part of the award to Minnesota's Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Flip's widow, Debbie, was on hand to accept the keys from Towns. She also placed a Flip pin on his suit jacket prior to the ceremony.

"To lose someone that I love tremendously in Flip was very hard," Towns said. "I took it very hard. But it's one of those things, his vision for us was set in stone. He knew exactly how he wanted us to play every single day and from then on it was about living his vision out every single day. I worked tremendously hard every single day, every single second to live his vision out."