Karl-Anthony Towns is turning quite a few heads as his vacation pictures and videos make the rounds on social media. In particular, a recent cut-up of KAT’s trip to Africa with his wife, Jordyn Woods, has drawn concern among timeline-scrollers because the seven-footer appears to be noticeably slimmer.
“Concern,” of course, is the wrong word here. Because while a thinner Towns isn’t essential, it has a chance to help him and the New York Knicks as they begin their title defense. If nothing else, it will make him more mobile on the defensive end, and perhaps better suited to shouldering a different type of offensive usage.
Right off the bat, we need to start here: Towns has not confirmed that he’s trimmed down. Reactions of the “Did he lose 30-plus pounds?!” ilk are pure speculation, and most definitely overblown.
In the event KAT has shed some LBs, it isn’t necessarily his final form. Training camp remains nearly a month away. And even if he’s already sporting the physique with which he plans to begin the season, his potential weight loss is hardly cause for concern.
All-Star veterans don’t stumble into significant physique changes by accident. If Towns dropped weight, it is by design. Feel free to doubt it, or worry about it. But KAT has deliberately made himself lighter before—including ahead of this past season.
An even lighter Karl-Anthony Towns fits the modern-day NBA
Centers ordinarily ferry the most physical responsibilities. Thinner bigs could find themselves at a disadvantage on the glass, when playing through contact, or when they have to tussle against burlier behemoths.
These would all be legit points of concern…if it were the 1990s. The game done changed. Towns isn’t the girthiest big man in the league, but his stature has become anomalous.
The NBA isn’t teeming with beefy bigs anymore. Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid are exceptions, and even they have trimmed down.
Worrying about how a skinnier Towns fares against dual-big frontcourts isn’t worth the brain power, either. Many of them are built around svelter towers or unimposing forces, like the Cleveland Cavaliers (Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen), Charlotte Hornets (Moussa Diabate and Naz Reid), Golden State Warriors (Kristaps Porzingis and Draymond Green), and more.
Any Karl-Anthony Towns’ weight loss is part of the Knicks’ plan
Assuming that Towns is yet again tipping the scales at a lighter weight, Knicks fans should count themselves as lucky—or, at the very least, intrigued. Though KAT doesn’t have to be lighter, a slimmed-down version of the All-NBA center fits what they may need from him.
Towns figures to have an even larger role in the offense as a facilitator after what we saw from him during New York’s title run. Given that he jump-starts a lot of possessions from above the break rather than down low, being lighter on his feet could help him get by defenders off dead-stop drives.
Meanwhile, on the less-glamorous end, a slimmer Towns should boast more lateral quickness. The body of work he delivered during the playoffs was a sight to behold. The Knicks need him to turn all his dials to 11 more often now that Mitchell Robinson is gone.
Sure, this could come at the cost of physicality on the glass, or when bodying up against Jokic, Ivica Zubac, or someone else. But let’s also not forget that Towns turns 31 in November. Leaning out each offseason is probably part of a plan to maximize his longevity. And the Knicks have no choice other than to hope he sustains superstardom into his mid-30s.
Once more, with feeling: We can’t yet confirm Towns has trimmed down. Nor do we know how much weight he has lost if he did. Whether he did or didn’t, though, this isn’t a development (or non-development) worth losing sleep over.
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