How Knicks coach Mike Brown plans to unlock Karl-Anthony Towns' full potential

Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News on Sep 26, 2025

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NEW YORK — Can Knicks head coach Mike Brown unlock Karl-Anthony Towns’ full offensive potential? The new shot-caller at Madison Square Garden certainly has ideas — and perhaps more importantly, experience that translates.

During his tenure in Sacramento, Brown built one of the league’s most dynamic offenses around a versatile big and a lightning-quick lead guard: Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox. Sabonis operated as a nightly triple-double threat — a high-IQ passer, dominant rebounder, and connective hub who embraced a secondary scoring role while orchestrating from the elbows.

Towns brings a different toolkit — and a much louder scoring resume. He’s one of the most prolific three-point shooting bigs in NBA history, averaging 24.4 points, 12.8 rebounds, and 3.1 assists on 52.6% shooting from the field and a staggering 42% from deep last season.

“They’re different players, but their skill set is at an extremely high level,” Brown said after Day 3 of training camp at the team’s Tarrytown practice facility on Friday. “So there are gonna be some things that Sabonis did do that for sure KAT can do when he’s at the five, and then vice-versa [when he’s at the four].

“KAT, we’re gonna move him around a lot. He’s not gonna just play the five. So he’ll be all over the floor and his ability to shoot the basketball will show because we’re gonna move him around.”

Brown didn’t hold back at Media Day when outlining how he plans to feature his new big man.

“We want to move him around to the weak corner, strong corner, weak wing, sometimes as the push man offensively,” said Brown. Sabonis built a reputation as a grab-and-go weapon who could initiate offense off the glass. “And when [KAT] is at the 5, we feel he is a really good passer. So sometimes he’ll be at the rim, sometimes he’ll be at the elbow. And when he’s at the elbow, that’s when he’s going to be in a big decision-making role.

“And we feel like he’s more than capable of making great decisions with the basketball.”

Too often last season, Towns faded into the background of New York’s offense. He went entire stretches without a touch — a basketball sin for a team featuring one of the most gifted scoring big men in the league, if not in its history.

But the Towns entering training camp this week looked nothing like an afterthought. The All-Star center — who limped out of Gainbridge Fieldhouse after the Knicks’ Eastern Conference finals exit — shut down rumors of undergoing offseason surgery. On Day 1 of camp, he was full throttle, sprinting baseline to baseline during fast-break drills.

Towns admitted he entered camp with questions about what might change under Brown, who replaced Tom Thibodeau on the sidelines this summer.

“I can’t speak on that yet because I truly don’t know,” he said. “But what I can say is that I know our team is unified and our team has the continuity needed to achieve great things, and we showed that last year and we’re going to build off of that from last year to this year and put our best foot forward this year.”

A positional shift between the four and five won’t be uncharted territory. Towns played the five exclusively early in his career as a No. 1 overall pick with the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wolves later traded for four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, moving Towns primarily to the four with stints at center. And last season, he opened as the starting center while Mitchell Robinson recovered from ankle surgery even though Thibodeau said he viewed Robinson as the starting five at the top of the season. Once Robinson returned, Thibodeau tested both bigs in tandem — a frontcourt pairing that nearly Knicks’ playoff run when Robinson was eventually reinserted into the starting lineup in place of Josh Hart midway through the conference finals.

“With Josh, I step into my traditional center role, which is something I’ve been known for early in my career and recent in my career I’ve been playing as four, too,” Towns said. “With Mitch, it allows me to kind of tap into that experience and [at the four], I’ve found ways to be successful. Just different ways of attacking and different ways we could play our game and be playing Knicks basketball.

“So regardless of if it’s Josh in the game or it is Mitch in the game, I feel very confident with either one of them, that we have a great chance of winning.”

Towns said he doesn’t have a preference between playing the four or the five.

“My preference is winning,” he said.

That mindset seems to be the theme in Tarrytown — and it’s coming soon to the hardwood floors of Madison Square Garden. Towns is a centerpiece in the Knicks’ championship pursuit, and now it’s up to Brown to find the right formula to make all the pieces fit.