Karl-Anthony Towns is the best big man in today’s NBA. The Minnesota Timberwolves superstar has amassed over 53 awards and all of them are self-awarded by his high level of playmaking, passing, shooting and defense that leads to him winning Defensive Player of the Year.
Big players in the NBA have had one offensive role for centuries. Obtain a good position on the low block, muscle your way to the hoop, and score. There were few outliers, but the NBA game was survival of the fittest without a 3-point line. Big guys, on the other hand, were not thought of as shooters. That is a relatively new phenomenon in the realm of time and space. And one contemporary big guy, Towns, Karl-Anthony of the Minnesota Timberwolves, claims to be the finest of the lot.
Of course, there were exceptions. Willis Reed was a small center who made up for it with a gentle touch from the mid-range. As a center in the 1970s, Bob McAdoo won three scoring championships because to his jump shot. NBA centers, on the other hand, were often scorers rather than shooters. They rebounded, blocked shots, and provided tough screens for the men who could score if they weren’t scorers.
Big guys aren’t supposed to get shot in NBA offenses.
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Big players going out to the perimeter and launching long balls is a relatively recent phenomena in the NBA, which uses 3-point attempts as a norm. Only two of the 60 most prolific 3-point shooting seasons by centers occurred in the twentieth century.
Both were done by the same person. In the late 1980s, Hall of Famer Jack Sikma made a significant shift in his playing. Sikma attempted 68 3-pointers in the first nine seasons he played with the 3-point line in place. Sikma fired 550 balls in the last three years of his career, hitting 35.6 percent of them. In 1988–89, he made 216 triple tries on 38.0 percent shooting and 199 triple tries on 34.2 percent shooting the following season.
Brook Lopez of the Milwaukee Bucks owns the record for most 3-point tries by a center. Splash Mountain dropped 512 bombs in 2018–19, with a 36.5 percent success rate. His 187 points in that season also puts him at the top of the leaderboard.
With 355 attempts in 2018–19, Karl-Anthony Towns is sixth on the list. The top 10 is rounded out by Channing Frye’s four appearances, as well as Lopez’s 2016–17 season and seasons from Nikola Vuevi, Kelly Olynyk, and DeMarcus Cousins.
Is there a case to be made that Towns is the best shooting big man of all time? He believes he has.
Karl-Anthony Towns has mastered the art of combining volume and precision.
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In his first six seasons, Karl-Anthony Towns was named to two All-Star teams, had an All-NBA season in 2017–18, and was named Rookie of the Year in 2015–16. In his career, he has averaged 23.0 points, 11.4 rebounds, 3.0 assists, and 1.4 blocks.
But as a shooter, he’s accomplished something no other center has.
Towns has three seasons in which he has averaged at least 20 points per game while shooting 50% overall and 40% from 3-point range, according to StatMuse. No other NBA center has ever had more than one of these seasons.
He’s on track to make it four in a row. This season, Towns has averaged 24.4 points on 50.6 percent shooting and 41.8 percent on 5.7 deep attempts per game.
Towns told The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski that as a shooting big man, he’s in a class by himself:
“I’m the all-time best big man shooter.” That is a proven truth. The statistics are available to see. I don’t have to act like everyone else. When I’m the first version, everyone is attempting to discover themselves as the second version of me. I don’t have to be a carbon copy of someone else. I’m already a one-of-a-kind. I’m not required to be a carbon copy of someone else.”
Karl-Anthony Towns
Towns, the No. 1 choice in the 2015 NBA Draft, is currently third in career 3-pointers among centers with 698. Only Frye (1,049 points in 13 seasons) and Olynyk are ahead of him (708 in his ninth year). While Towns has a lifetime shooting percentage of 39.7% from three-point range, Frye has a career record of 38.8%. Olynyk has 36.6 percent of the vote.
Towns makes a compelling argument.
Karl-Anthony Towns’ great shooting hasn’t translated into many victories.
The Minnesota Timberwolves’ Karl-Anthony Towns called himself the “best big man shooter of all time.” He might be correct. | Getty Images/Jared C. Tilton
Despite Karl-Anthony Towns’ outstanding scoring stats, the Minnesota Timberwolves have yet to win a game. Minnesota has the NBA’s fourth-worst winning percentage (.405) since Towns joined the franchise in 2015. The only teams with lower records are the Phoenix Suns (.390), Orlando Magic (.379), and New York Knicks (.371).
Towns has only been in the playoffs once, in a five-game defeat to the Houston Rockets in 2018. He scored 15.2 points per game in the series, shooting 46.7 percent overall and 3-of-11 from three-point range.
To go back to.500, the Timberwolves have won four consecutive games. This season, though, they’ve been exceedingly erratic. Minnesota has lost six and five games in a row after a 3–1 start, while also winning five games in a row.
The Wolves are 15–15 in the Western Conference, 2.5 games clear of the Trail Blazers in 11th place for a position in the play-in round. They are three games behind the sixth-place Denver Nuggets.
Minnesota’s season has been defined only by its inconsistency. The Timberwolves have a 9–9 home record and a 6–6 away record.
They’ve mixed victories on the road against reigning champion Milwaukee with home defeats to the Pelicans and Magic. Minnesota is 2–0 versus the Lakers, with a pair of blowout victories by an average of 26 points. The Magic thrashed them by 18 points in their own arena, and the Clippers thrashed them by 20 points in Target Center.
When talking about the best shooting big men in NBA history, Karl-Anthony Towns has to be mentioned. The next challenge is converting that high level of performance into wins and playoff success. This has been the struggle for the Minnesota Timberwolves throughout their less-than-illustrious past.
Basketball Reference and Stathead provided the statistics.
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