Karl-Anthony Towns Jr. (born November 15, 1995), nicknamed “KAT”, is a Dominican-American professional basketball player for the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats. Towns was named to the Dominican Republic national team as a 16-year-old. He was selected with the first overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Towns was named the Rookie of the Year for the 2015–16 season. He is second on the Timberwolves' all-time scoring list. He led the team to the Western Conference finals in 2024, their first appearance in 20 years. After spending nine seasons with the Timberwolves, Towns was traded to the Knicks before the 2024–25 season. He is a five-time NBA All-Star, a two-time All-NBA Team member, and became the first center to win the NBA Three-Point Contest in 2022.
born in Edison, New Jersey to an African-American father, Karl Towns Sr., and a Dominican mother, Jacqueline Cruz. He grew up in Piscataway, New Jersey, and attended Lake Nelson Seventh-Day Adventist School, before transferring to Theodore Schor Middle School from Our Lady of Fatima School in 2009. At Theodore Schor, he reclassified and repeated seventh grade in order to gain an extra year of development. Towns's father played basketball for Monmouth University and coached basketball at Piscataway Technical High School, where the precocious Towns practiced with the junior varsity team as a fifth grader.
In his freshman year, Kentucky used a unique "platoon system" that limited the minutes of each player, and he subsequently averaged 10.3 points and 6.7 rebounds in 21.1 minutes per game. He studied kinesiology in his one year at Kentucky, and hopes to become a doctor after his basketball career. Though he left Kentucky for the NBA, Towns enrolled in online courses, and hopes to earn his degree. He was named a second-team All-American by the Associated Press and NABC, and a third-team All-American by Sporting News. Throughout the 2014–15 season, Towns was often ranked behind Duke center Jahlil Okafor as a draft prospect. However, due to strong play in the NCAA Tournament, and a growing consensus that Towns was a better defensive player and had an opportunity to become a better offensive player as well, Towns overtook Okafor in most draft rankings.
On April 9, 2015, Towns and fellow Kentucky teammates Andrew Harrison, Aaron Harrison, Dakari Johnson, Devin Booker, Trey Lyles and Willie Cauley-Stein, all declared for the 2015 NBA draft.
Towns was selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the first overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft. He signed his rookie scale contract with the Timberwolves on July 7, and made his NBA debut in the Timberwolves' season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers on October 28, recording 14 points and 12 rebounds as a starter in a 112–111 win. In the following game on October 30 against the Denver Nuggets, his 28 points and 14 rebounds propelled the Timberwolves to their first 2–0 start with two wins on the road in team history. Over his first 13 games of the season, Towns averaged 16.0 points and 10.4 rebounds per game. Those numbers dropped, however, to 8.4 points and 6.0 rebounds over the next five games. Despite this, on December 3, he was named Western Conference Rookie of the Month for November, becoming just the seventh Timberwolves player to win NBA Rookie of the Month honors.
Comments