{"id":620488,"date":"2026-02-23T19:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/620488\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:54:16","slug":"kendrick-perkins-reveals-knicks-most-important-player-and-fans-should-be-terrified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/620488\/","title":{"rendered":"Kendrick Perkins reveals Knicks’ most important player (and fans should be terrified)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jalen Brunson may be the captain of the New York Knicks, but Karl-Anthony Towns is their most important player.<\/p>\n

At least, that’s what Kendrick Perkins recently said <\/a>on Monday’s edition of Get Up.<\/p>\n

Though many in his field have recently started to believe a deep playoff run may not be in the cards<\/a> for New York here in 2025-26, the 14-year NBA veteran turned ESPN analyst still views the club as having “a legit chance” of clinching a championship-round berth, and the key toward doing so is having a fully locked-in KAT manning the middle.<\/p>\n

“If they use this recipe of using Karl-Anthony Towns, the Knicks actually got a legit chance of going to the NBA Finals. Karl-Anthony Towns is the most important player on this team, and they got to continue to find ways to feature him in the offense,” Perkins said.<\/p>\n

Karl-Anthony Towns is most polarizing player on Knicks<\/p>\n

All throughout his second season with the Knicks, Towns has regularly been on the receiving end of criticism<\/a> for his inconsistent play and often underwhelming defensive efforts.<\/p>\n

However, as MSG Network’s Alan Hahn recently put it<\/a> on X (formerly Twitter), these criticisms only arise when the big man falls short of his potential, for, as he said, “we know how impactful he can be when he\u2019s locked in!”<\/p>\n

From both the eye test and advanced metrics, it’s clear that the way in which the 30-year-old produces on the floor directly impacts the outcome of a game for New York.<\/p>\n

The primary difference from a win\/ loss basis comes in the offensive efficiency department.<\/p>\n

In their 37 wins this year, Towns is averaging 20.1 points while shooting 49.1 percent from the floor and a lights-out 41.3 percent from deep. On top of this, his plus-minus is a second-best plus-11.5, and his defensive rating has been an elite 105.6.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, through 21 losses, he’s posting 19.9 points on a lowly 44.5 percent shooting from the floor and an even more putrid 28.7 percent shooting from deep, while registering with a minus-3.4 plus-minus and a ghastly 119.0 defensive rating.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the trick is to get Towns involved in the offense early on so he can find a rhythm quickly in a game.<\/p>\n

After getting just three shots up in the first half against the Pistons on February 19 (went just 1-for-3), it’s no surprise that he couldn’t get into a groove when they needed him most in the pivotal final two quarters (finished with 21 points while going a miserable 25.0 percent from deep).<\/p>\n

In the end, the Knicks were ultimately blown out by a final score of 126-111.<\/p>\n

On the flip side, in both of their last two games against the Rockets and Bulls, Towns came out of the gates swinging, going 4-for-7 in the former and 6-for-10 in the latter during the first two periods of each.<\/p>\n

In the end, the All-Star would drop 25 and 28 points, respectively, on a combined 62.5 percent shooting from the floor and 66.7 percent shooting from deep while the Knicks went on to win two straight.<\/p>\n

As Perkins would continue to highlight during his appearance on the program, Towns “works off of emotions,” and suggested that stroking his ego seems to get the most out of him.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, when Towns is dialed in and utilized as a primary weapon, he’s truly one of the best players in the game today. Unfortunately, on far too many occasions, be it as a result of a lack of touches, arguing with the refs, or other rumored off-court issues<\/a>, he’s found himself out of focus.<\/p>\n

Having someone so unpredictable serving as the 1B of this championship-aspiring Knicks team is understandably quite unnerving for fans.<\/p>\n

During this final stretch of the regular season leading into the playoffs, it’s up to coach Mike Brown to figure out how to use Towns as a schematic priority more consistently, for only then will the club’s full potential be officially unlocked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson may be the captain of the New York Knicks, but Karl-Anthony Towns is their most important…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":["post-620488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-knicks","tag-basketball","tag-knicks","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkknicks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116121702640742396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}