Karl-Anthony Towns is having his worst season on the offensive end since he was a rookie. While he remains inclined to attribute his struggles to the New York Knicks’ system under head coach Mike Brown, there is another equally, if not more, important factor impacting his performance.
He’s not making his wide-open threes.
KAT is currently knocking down just 33.8 percent of his uncontested triples, which are defined as any attempts from beyond the arc in which a defender is six or more feet away. Out of 99 players who have launched as many wide-open threes, his efficiency on these looks ranks 88th.
“Make more of your unguarded treys, darnit!” feels like reductive advice. In Towns’ case, though, it’s spot-on.
Karl-Antony Towns has never shot this poorly on wide-open threes
Here’s a look at KAT’s accuracy on three-pointers with defenders six or more feet away since 2020, with the share of his long-ball attempts going unguarded that season in parenthesis:
- 2025-26: 33.8 percent (45.5 percent of all attempts)
- 2024-25: 46.7 percent (40.5 percent of all attempts)
- 2023-24: 48.7 percent (48.3 percent of all attempts)
- 2022-23: 40.0 percent (42.6 percent of all attempts)
- 2021-22: 46.0 percent (37.4 percent of all attempts)
- 2020-21: 41.1 percent (50.1 percent of all attempts)
- 2019-20: 46.8 percent (45.4 percent of all attempts)
Towns’ performance on high-quality threes this season is the mother of all outliers. Not only that, but he’s having a hard time finding nylon despite more of his triples coming as uncontested looks.
Weirder still, we can’t attribute his issues to a dramatic change in three-point location. His average shot distance is right in line with his career average, and he’s always fired a majority of his treys from above the break.
This could be a silver lining for the Knicks
There is no world in which Towns underachieving on the offensive end, of all places, can be considered a good thing. At the same time, when he’s so thoroughly playing below his long-established baselines, a progression to the mean is inevitable.
It would be one thing if Towns were someone who subsisted on self-created triples. Those shots are subject to wilder swings. That’s not what is happening here.
Towns is racking up misses on what should be bread-and-butter looks. The rut he’s in, while extended, can’t be considered a new normal. Not when he’s in the heart of his prime. And most certainly not when he’s a seven-footer able to shoot over the top of anyone, so even his semi-contested opportunities are more open than those from most others.
Anyone who has watched Towns over the course of his career knows he’s a billboard for inconsistency. That is in itself a problem for the Knicks. What’s happening here isn’t that.
The bigger concern might be that he feels the system is failing him, or that he’s failing to adapt within it. There is real stuff to unpack here. We shouldn't worry too much about the decline of Towns’ post touches. His enduring lack of chemistry with Jalen Brunson might be worth losing sleep over. The same goes for the defensive obstacles that he poses.
But the three-point shooting? Or rather, the wide-open three-point shooting? That will come around. And when it does, it’ll offset most, if not all, of the scoring dip Towns is incurring this season.