The Knicks’ offense is off to a hot start under head coach Mike Brown’s new system, producing over 120 points per game and ranking third in efficiency, en route to an 11-6 start despite multiple missed games from key starters and reserves. However, there is a lone, striking fault in the early returns: Karl-Anthony Towns’ struggles.
The former No. 1 overall pick is off to a slower offensive start, averaging 22.4 points per game on 51.7 percent shooting from two and 32.6 percent shooting from three. Those shooting numbers, percentage-wise, would be career lows by a longshot if sustained, which naturally has fans concerned about the team’s second option.
Towns has put up some major performances in contrast — 39, 37 and 33 points in wins against the Heat, Nets and Wizards, respectively — but he’s had many more snoozers. So, is this just a rough shooting patch, an adjustment to the new offense, or something more?
Let’s dive into his two-point conversions first. Towns should be benefitting from the increased spacing this season, yet hasn’t converted in the paint to his usual standards.
The good news here is that Towns was playing through a Grade 2 quad strain to start the year, and that appears to be the likely culprit. His first six games, he shot sub-40 percent from two, and has been at a career-average mark of 57 percent since.
It’s apparent when comparing the film between the first games and more recent ones: Towns was moving with real discomfort and generally looked grounded. Now his explosiveness on drives and leaps to the rim has returned, and the numbers have backed it up.
With the inside scoring seemingly solving itself with time, that leaves Towns’ normally deadeye three-point shooting, which has not bounced back similarly. He’s seen an uptick in volume, but just compared to last year, this is a normal amount of attempts for him, and they’re coming from largely the same geography.
Though he is an especially rough 1-13 on the right wing, he’s shooting worse consistently from every spot. Opponent pressure doesn’t appear to be the case, first with the new rules protecting shooters’ hands, second as he’s getting a higher frequency of wide open shots than last year, per NBA.com stats data.
They haven’t fallen at the same rate, dropping from 46.7 percent to a staggering 26.2 percent clip. These looks, however flawed in their classification, make up about half of Towns’ threes and should be his easiest buckets, yet they aren’t going down.
There was nothing reported about Towns tweaking his jumper nor does it look like he has. He’s not taking a material amount of threes from further out, and has always been comfortable with deep range anyway.
Could Brown’s new offense be putting Towns in some discomfort that’s affecting his shooting? Towns did have a quote about figuring out his role earlier in the year, but he’s looked in sync otherwise and increasingly been put in beneficial positions.
It’s possible his workload has changed a bit, with the Knicks’ pace increasing 3 percent year over year and Towns potentially setting more screens. Neither of these would make such a huge dent in his shooting, and would theoretically impact him as the season went on, not right out of the gates.
With a shooter and scorer like Towns, sometimes the simplest answer is also the correct one. He’s going through a random shooting rut and will shortly shoot his way out of it.
Knicks fans are quick to ring alarm bells, especially in a season with stakes like this one. But among the many valid issues to worry about, Towns turning his scoring around is not one of them.
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