A year ago, Karl-Anthony Towns was being heralded as the missing piece who was going to push the Knicks to the next level.
Towns, traded to the Knicks at the start of training camp last season, didn’t waste much time figuring out his role in Tom Thibodeau’s offense. He had one of the best seasons of his career, averaging 24.4 points, 12.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists.
After the Knicks lost to Indiana in the Eastern Conference finals, they replaced Thibodeau with Mike Brown with the intention of supercharging their offense and taking the team to the next level. However, on Monday, two days before the 2025-26 season opener, Towns sounded more than a little lost when asked about his role in the new offense.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said about his fit in Brown’s system. “We’re figuring it out, but honestly, I just don’t know. It’s just different. We’re still figuring it out.”
Brown’s fast-paced offense is a significant change for a team that played a methodical, slow-tempo game in which they could break down the defense with the pick-and-roll. Still, it’s not an encouraging sign when your second-leading scorer sounds unsure about his place in the system.
Brown has said that of the starters, Towns has the most to adjust to as he will be asked to play center and power forward. In Brown’s offense, positions one through four can be interchangeable.
“First thing is, it’s going to be a process, especially with him missing the last couple of games [with a sore quadriceps]. His learning curve is the steepest because he has to learn all five positions,” Brown said after practice Monday.
“But the one thing it’s going to do for him is it’s going to move him around. He’s not always going to be at the top of the floor. He’ll be in the strong corner, he’ll be in the weak corner, he can be the push man or he can be the weak wing. And also he can be at the top of the key and in the dunker [position]. This will help him, the movement.”
Brown went on to caution that it might take some time for it all to come together.
“The one thing you’re always worried about, especially with [Towns] being out these few games, when the lights come on Wednesday, everybody wants it right now, right now,” Brown said.
“And so I have to manage not just his frustration if it doesn’t work out the way he wants [it] to in this time but everybody’s frustration.
“It’s OK. We’re going to get there. This is a marathon. It’s not a sprint.”
Notes & quotes: Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hart did not practice Monday, and Brown said he is unsure of their status for Wednesday’s season opener against the Cavaliers. Hart, who is suffering from back spasms, missed the final four preseason games and seems unlikely to be ready to go. Robinson, who has a history of injuries, has missed the last two games because of what the Knicks have termed load management. Brown said after the last preseason game on Friday that Robinson would have been available had it been a regular-season game, so it seems fairly likely that he will be on the floor for the first game of the season.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
