Good morning! The Knicks end their road trip tonight in Indy, where both Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart are listed as questionable. Indy has been sitting players left and right, but former Clipper big man Ivica Zubac did make his Pacer debut last night. We’ll see who gives it a go as the Knicks look for revenge after a subpar outing a few weeks back.
The Secret to KAT’s Resurgence
Yesterday morning, I finally got around to listening to Tuesday’s episode of the Zach Lowe Show in which Zach and John Hollinger made their tentative picks for the two All-Defense teams.
Much to my delight (and mild surprise1), Zach had OG Anunoby on his All-Defense 1st team while John slotted OG on his second team. It made me feel pretty good about the chances Anunoby will become the first Knick to make an All-Defense team since Tyson Chandler in 2013. A well-deserved (and long overdue) honor.
It also got me wondering about other postseason awards.
Jalen Brunson is currently on the outside looking in for a top-five MVP spot, although I assume he’ll get some rogue fifth place votes and finish inside of the top 10. My guess is that he’ll be right on the border between All-NBA 2nd and 3rd team as well. That would make him the first Knick to make three consecutive All-NBA teams (or three All-NBA teams period, for that matter) since Ewing, who made six straight from 1988 to 1993.
Mitchell Robinson has a sneaky case for some enterprising voter to give him a spot on their 6th Man of the Year ballot, although said voter would have to put heavy emphasis on his per-minute impact given that he’s played a little more than half as many minutes as leading candidates Naz Reid and Jaime Jacquez Jr. Still, for him in rank 14th in total plus minus among bench players is quite an accomplishment given his limited playing time, as is the fact that he’s about to demolish the all-time single season record for offensive rebounds per 36 minutes.
And of course I’d love nothing more than for Mohamed Diawara to get even one vote for an All-Rookie team, although I’m not holding my breath.
That just leaves Karl-Anthony Towns, a player who hasn’t been in any of the early All-NBA discussions but is starting to make a case for himself.
For much of this season, you had yahoos like me wondering whether the Knicks were better off shipping KAT out for matching salary, a bag of basketballs and a 20 percent off coupon for gutter cleaning at the World’s Most Famous Arena. If nothing else, his season has been an adventure. Interestingly enough, just as New York was rebounding from their worst stretch of the season in mid-January, Towns hit a personal nadir. Over the first six games of the post-MLK Day winning streak, Karl averaged 12.3 points and made just 18-of-42 shots from inside the arc.
Coincidentally or otherwise, when the trade deadline passed, things began to change. Starting with the Super Bowl Sunday win over the Celtics, KAT has averaged 20.5 points while shooting 43.1 percent on threes and 64.1 percent on twos. More importantly, he entered last night ranked 15th in the NBA in total plus minus over that span. No other Knick ranks in the top 35.
Looking at some popular advanced stats, for the season KAT is now 6th in Win Shares (behind SGA, Jokic, KD, Maxey and Jalen Duren) and in 12th in Estimated Wins Added based on EPM2 (trailing SGA, Jokic, Derrick White, Luka, Maxey, Mitchell, Kawhi, Wemby, KD, Cade and Jamal Murray). He’s a little lower in Value Over Replacement Player (28th) and Box Plus Minus (34th), but even so, he has a real case for All-NBA 3rd Team3.
That would be quite an accomplishment for him personally and further cement a Hall of Fame case that probably doesn’t need cementing.
But it isn’t the prime concern for most Knick fans, not unless he can parlay such an accomplishment into the sort of postseason success that has largely eluded him. The good news is that based on how he’s been playing recently, we have more reason than ever to be hopeful.
To show what I mean, let’s take a look at eight KAT clips from the past few weeks.
