During a January game in San Francisco against the Golden State Warriors, the New York Knicks did something that should have never happened: they didn’t defend their teammate, Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns, 30, the Knicks’s second best player, was being subjected to aggressive intimidation by Warriors defensive stalwart Draymond Green, as Green is accustomed to doing to an opposing forward. In the middle of the fourth quarter, Towns drove on Green who tried to take a charge, then proceeded to trip him when he was on the ground as Towns rose up for a layup. Earlier in the game, Green had walked over to Mike Brown, the head coach of the Knicks, and exchanged pleasantries. After the game, they laughed heartily even though the Knicks lost a game that they were a better fourth quarter away from winning. Green said on his podcast that Knicks coaches chirped him throughout the game but it all felt too friendly; the spirit of friendly competition remains a good rule of law, but Green’s an antagonizer who needs to be pushed back. Furthermore, it was not the first time that Green had provoked Towns. A season ago, he called him soft, then claimed that Towns was ducking him when he missed the game against the Warriors in March. The hell with fraternizing when the opposition is attempting to punk one of our star players: if the game was competitive, then the soul of the cordial association with Green during and after the game was a corrupt comedy.

There wasn’t nearly enough of a defense of Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns, or “KAT”, as he known as, is in the midst of his second season with the Knicks. The deft shot-making that he possessed in his first season hasn’t always been there during his second season. It is easy to forget — with his struggles this season and the general criticisms about his body language and toughness that are often thrown Towns’s way — that his shot making in the fourth game of the first round against the Pistons gave the Knicks some breathing room in the form of a 3-1 series lead. Even if Brunson doesn’t do his sixth game heroics, they would have still had a seventh game at Madison Square Garden because of Towns’s clutch shots. Where Brunson is the team leader, the politician with everyone in his back pocket, the backcourt stalwart that is reminiscent of the great scoring guards of this generation, Towns is a luxurious weapon. 

Towns is an earnest star. His instincts lead him to show emotion on the court, emotion that allows for the most traditional kinds of men to question his mental toughness. For instance, when Towns was told by Shaquille O’Neal that it would take a formidable one-two punch with Brunson for the Knicks to finally hoist the trophy the fans have been longing to see, Towns pushed back with some of his trademark humility and kindness. “I said you were playing soft… It’s high aspirations, of course there are going to talk about Brunson, but it’s you and your play, you have to be dominant… You played in the paint tonight, that’s the way you have to play”, explained Shaq. Shaq is from a different time, where the center was supposed to play behind the basket and although he played against Dirk Nowitzki in his prime, nor was it like athletic specimens such as Kevin Garnett or Patrick Ewing played as restrictedly as Shaq played, he believes that a big man belongs in the paint. Towns pushed back with slight vigor. “We win a championship, we can talk about anybody, as long as all we get a ring. The main goal is to win, it don’t matter who gets the credit.” Whatever one takes from this conversation, it showed who Towns is compared to the some of the legends that he grew up with. There’s such a toxic masculinity, a sense of selfish responsibility in Shaq that is catered to the ideas of 1990’s America, a guy’s guy persona that sits right next to his inability to stay out of commercials on our television screen. If receiving credit was a woman, Shaq would marry it after the first date. 

Towns is much different than that. He grew up in the Obama era, where players team up in free agency together, played for John Calipari at Kentucky, where freshmen used to hone their skills in Lexington without haggle. He is the son of Jackie Towns, who passed away during COVID, and Karl Towns Sr. When Mrs. Towns was alive, you could find her cheering on Karl at the games. Everyone in the NBA has supportive parents, the trope of the no-father Black men is ridiculous, but the outward love that Towns has for his parents is apparent. The best version of Towns’s personality exists when he recollects his close relationship with his mom, and the toll that her death has taken on him and how he has fought to keep his emotions at bay whenever he thinks about her. He is an emotionally intelligent, genuine person in the sea of what is sometimes braggarts and wooden personalities. Whatever one makes of Towns’s gentleness at times, his babyish complaints to the referees and his three point launches, there is nothing cynical in him. Towns is much maligned because he does not perform the unadulterated masculinity, the traditional sense of duty and honor that some of the greatest NBA legends have performed. Not since Chris Bosh has there been a big man that is teased for not being as performatively macho as someone like Shaq is.

Sometimes Towns’s emotions on the court get the best of him, though. In the midst of being human, he can be annoying. He can be overly sensitive to contact, he can complain about the previous call when he should block it away and move on to the next possession. His lift is not the same as it was the year before and my mind immediately wonders whether Towns has an injury he doesn’t want anyone to know about it. In the year of 2025-2026, I am reminded of Sensei Sergio from One Battle After Another, who tells Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson, “Ocean Waves, Bob, Ocean Waves.” Whenever Towns is sulking, or conversing with Mike Brown over a play or two on offense and defense, Sensei saying “ocean waves” is what I keep thinking about. Macho men like Jimmy Butler were trying to teach him that, but they forget to uplift the sensitive Towns first, before being tough on him. Towns’s methods of receiving communication is the method of a younger millennial: with kindness and collaboration. Furthermore, it is not as if being on the block would miraculously change the Knicks’s team. Towns is best used as a pick and pop player, a forward in space, a matchup nightmare for teams that put undersized players on him, and a shot maker that can hit three that no man his size should be able to hit. Other than the great Dirk Nowitzki, he is the best shooting big man of all-time, although, at 36.8%, his percentage this season has creeped down from what they were last season.

In 2024-2025, Towns’s task was score when Brunson was not on the court, take over games when Brunson was not quite there. He did that against the Pacers in the comeback third game of the Eastern Conference Finals, when Towns had a monster second half. He looked unstoppable. Knicks fans can’t expect that every time but we have seen a dominant player before and are waiting for it to come out this season. Shaq, in his twisted, selfish, slightly toxic way is absolutely correct: this team will go nowhere without Towns and he needs to take the responsibility like he knows that he can. He knows that more than he lets on even though he wants to play the role of good teammate. One can understand that it is a team sport while taking the responsibility for the hopes of a championship contending team. This is the world that the big man before him made, and although his talents are different than them, it is fine to follow in their footsteps. He knows that. As he says to Shaq after the pushback, “Legend, I agree with you”, even though to call Towns soft is to mischaracterize his style of play. Watching him defend himself alone against Green was torturous. One got the sense that he was tired of this bully attempting to literally bully him and wanted a teammate to get in Green’s face so Green would dumb his fake tough guy persona down. It must be tiring to go to war with no one next to you but the pleasant OG Anunoby. It’s just basketball, of course, but it did not inspire the tough New York kid that is inside of me. I felt for Towns after that game. He needed his brothers to tell the neighborhood bully to go away.

The Knicks know that an opposing player dissing Towns publicly and on the court can’t happen anymore. Leon Rose traded for the pest Jose Alvarado, a tough kid from Brooklyn who if he ever backed down a day in his life would not be in the NBA. Jeremy Schoen will be good for a few technical fouls come April and May. Towns’s affinity for avoiding corny macho behaviors is what makes him an unique talent but the events of Green and the Shaq interview shows that the league wants him to perform those things as if they are going to help him make shots. They won’t but the complaining to the referees adds fuel to the fire, adds to the lore that he is someone who you can disorientate. All Knick fans want is a title, or at least a trip there, a chance at surprising someone in Oklahoma City, San Antonio, or Denver, and if Towns can play like he did last postseason, the Knicks can make it there. He will be a legend in this city and beyond if he does that, no matter how Shaq and the one-step-away-from-being-part-of-the-manosphere dudes think he should play like. However, hope is not something that is myth. It is earned. The Towns that I saw last season is needed.