Karl Anthony Towns or KAT calls himself the best-shooting big man ever to play in the NBA. After all, he shoots 39.8% from beyond the arc with 4.3 three-point attempts per game, so his claim to being the biggest shooting big man ever, may just be right. Drafted 1st Overall in the 2016 NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves, Towns did not take long to emerge as a star. He won the Rookie of the Year and has only developed into a superstar since then.
Last season (2023-24), his production from the field dropped a bit because he wanted to involve Rudy Gobert in the offense in an attempt to please the crowd. While their chemistry did grow, Towns was passing up way too many good looks to get his teammates involved. This led to a drop in his scoring averages.
He is a 4x all-star who played 9 seasons with the Timberwolves and is a career 23 points per game scorer. Towns was the first player in 20 years to average 24-plus points and 12-plus rebounds. The last big man to do that was Shaquille O’Neal in 1994. He is one of the best centers in the league, if not the best at only 29 years of age, as of November 2024. Towns’ biggest problem, like many other stars, is his durability. He has missed a lot of games which might have robbed him of some more all-star selections, and All-NBA teams. In the 2019-2020 season, he played just 35 games, and in the 2022-23 season, he only played 29 games. However, he played 62 games in the 2023/24 NBA season and he seems healthy to start the 2024/25 season with his new team, the New York Knicks.
Karl Anthony Towns’ Defensive Rating
Karl Anthony Towns’ defensive rating is 109.1. The way we read defensive ratings is if the rating is higher, then the person is allowing more points for the opposition to score. If the rating is less, then the person is allowing fewer points scored on them. According to Statmuse, the average defensive rating in the 2023-24 season was 112.1 for centers.
Towns’ defense still requires some work as offenses in the NBA are quite literally overpowered these days. This means that the Knicks have to work on their paint defense a lot more to be a championship-contending team. Last season, the Knicks were 10th in defensive rankings with a defensive rating of 112.4 so they still have some room for improvement.
Even though Towns is great at scoring the basketball himself, he has not developed his game enough to do other things on the court. His growth has remained stagnant for years excluding his scoring. Towns need to be a better facilitator, a better defender, and a better leader on the court of the Knicks, if they’re to make a deep playoffs run.
FAQs
A. Karl-Anthony Towns was born in Edison, New Jersey.
A. Karl-Anthony Towns is 7 feet 0 inches tall.
A. Karl-Anthony Towns plays the center position for the New York Knicks.
A. Karl-Anthony Towns attended the University of Kentucky.
A. Karl-Anthony Towns has a career defensive rating of 109.1
