A lot is being made about the New York Knicks running more of the offense through Karl-Anthony Towns, and dominating defenses as a result. More attention, however, should be given to the big man fixing an issue that’s plagued him since his days with the Minnesota Timberwolves: passing the ball out of drives.
So much of KAT’s playmaking evolution is rooted in his standstill and top-of-the-floor facilitation. He is racking up dimes on hand-offs, and through surveying the defense and waiting for shooters to spring free or cutting lanes to develop.
That in itself is a huge deal. It allows New York to leverage Towns’ size and vision, makes it easier for him to capitalize on possessions in which he’s guarded by smalls, and alleviates the pressure on him to score in bunches.
Still, after his uptick in touches per minute, Towns’ most noticeable and valuable shift is coming as a live-dribble decision-maker—a change so massive, the Wolves never would’ve traded him to New York if he’d made it under their watch.
Karl-Anthony Towns is more dangerous than ever going downhill
Though Towns has always been a threat to impact the game as a driver, any effectiveness was almost entirely owed to his size, and bulldozing downhill physicality. Yet, the same traits that could make him such an impactful scorer when attacking north-south also rendered him predictable.
Towns’ tunnel vision on drives was notorious before he ever arrived in the Big Apple. It has continued in New York—until now.
During the regular season, the seven-footer delivered a pass on 18.8 percent of his drives. Among 74 players who finished as many of these plays, this ranked…74th. The same goes for his 4.4 assist rate out of drives.
Including this past year, Towns has never placed higher than the 35th percentile of passout rate on drives, or above the 50th percentile in his assist rate on drives, according to BBall Index. For his career, he has never passed on more than 26.6 percent of his drives, or dished assists on more than 7.7 percent of these plays.
That trend continued to open these playoffs. Through the first three games of the Hawks series, Towns passed on just five percent of his drives, while handing out zero assists.
Then, the Knicks overhauled their offensive structure by giving Towns more touches. He has responded by rewarding them with more versatile decision-making on live dribbles.
In the seven games since, all of them wins, Towns is passing on 35.7 percent of his drives. While that isn’t an astronomical number, it’s basically double his regular-season passout share. It is also accompanied by an 11.9 assist rate—a top-seven mark among 48 players averaging as many drives per game.
The Knicks are lucky Towns didn’t do this in Minnesota
Coaxing more passes out of KAT on drives has outsized importance. The one-note attacks made him predictable. Scoring opportunities were harder, and he left setup opportunities for his teammates on the table.
Although he’s not exactly waltzing his way to the basket, he’s more often powering his way through one or 1.5 defenders than two or more. When defenses do sell out to stop him, his willingness to defer has a profound impact on the offensive efficiency.
Tracking data on this isn’t perfect, but Knicks players have taken 61 shots while using no more than one dribble after receiving a pass from Towns. They have made 56 of these attempts—a whopping 91.8 percent success rate.
This version of Towns was clearly worth the wait. Especially when weighed against the prospect of Minnesota never trading him. No, the Anthony Edwards-era Timberwolves probably never would have run the offense through Towns . But the passing out of drives would have made a world of difference in the series they just lost to the San Antonio Spurs.
Sure, they shipped Towns to the Knicks for financial reasons as well. Turning him into three players theoretically balanced out and deepened the rotation. But the Julius Randle touches to nowhere persist, and were a hallmark of their latest downfall. While he’s always deferred more out of his drives, he’s never done anything like this.
Unlocking this version of Towns is New York’s ultimate cheat code. It would have been one for the Wolves, too. They never unleashed it. They couldn’t or wouldn’t, or didn’t know it existed. Not like this. The Knicks are now clear-cut favorites to win the Eastern Conference because of it.
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