15 key stats: Knicks add unique scorer in Towns

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Karl-Anthony Towns is coming home.
Two of the best teams in the league reportedly pulled off a blockbuster trade on Friday, with the Minnesota Timberwolves sending Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks in exchange for Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle and a first-round pick.
The Wolves are coming off their best season in 20 years and a trip to the Western Conference Finals. The Knicks, having already acquired Mikal Bridges this offseason, are seen as one of the biggest threats to the Boston Celtics in the East.
Here are some numbers to know about the 28-year-old big man as he joins a team that plays less than an hour from where he grew up …
Career numbers
1. Towns is one of 10 players in NBA history to have averaged at least 22 points and 10 rebounds per game over their career (minimum of 500 total games).
2. He’s the only player in NBA history to have shot 55% or better on at least 2,000 2-point attempts and 38% or better on at least 1,000 3-point attempts.
3. He’s also the only player to have 100 3-point makes, 100 blocks and 1,000 rebounds in a single season, and he’s done it twice (2016-17 and ’17-18).
A special shooter
4. Towns’ 975 career 3-pointers rank fourth all-time among players at least seven-feet tall. His 39.8% from 3-point range is the highest mark among the 32 seven-footers with at least 200 career 3-point attempts.
5. This past season, Towns became just the sixth different player to shoot 50% or better on at least 500 field goal attempts, 40% or better on at least 300 3-point attempts and 85% or better on at least 250 free throw attempts.
6. His 57.6% shooting in the paint was the lowest mark of his career, but his effective field goal percentage of 57.6% on shots from outside the paint was the best mark of his career.
Critical to the offense, not so much the defense
7. The Wolves were at their best offensively last season (116.3 points scored per 100 possessions) with Towns on the floor.
8. They scored 118.7 points per 100 possessions in 641 minutes with all five starters on the floor, but just 104.5 per 100 in 363 minutes with the other four on the floor without Towns.
9. The Wolves were better with both Towns and Rudy Gobert on the floor (plus-8.6 per 100 possessions) than they were with either on the floor without the other. The Gobert-only minutes were better (plus-7.4 per 100) than the Towns-only minutes (plus-4.9), even though the offense was better with only Towns on the floor.
10. Opponents shot 60.6% at the rim when Towns was there to defend it last season. That was his best rim-protection mark of the last four seasons, though his 4.1 shots defended at the rim per 36 minutes on the floor was the lowest rate of his career.
Assisted more, assisting less
11. Towns averaged just 1.9 minutes of possession last season. That was fifth on the Wolves and the lowest rate of his career, with his 2.9 post-ups per game also being a career low.
12. He was assisted on 73.5% of his field goals, also the highest mark of his career.
13. Towns himself recorded assists on just 13.2% of his possessions, his lowest rate in the last five seasons and the fourth lowest rate among 49 players with a usage rate of 25% or higher.
Playoff ups and downs
14. Towns has seen pretty big drops in true shooting percentage from the regular season to the playoffs in each of the last two years, though his mark of 58.1% in the 2024 playoffs was still well above the league average (56.6%). Only three of the nine Knicks who averaged at least 15 minutes in the playoffs had a higher mark.
15. He saw big drops in usage rate from the regular season to the playoffs in two of the last three seasons, with a small jump (from 25.0% to 25.3%) in 2023.
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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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