Knicks Big Men & the Shadows of the Past

Karl-Anthony Towns, preferred styles, and a deeper reconciliation of modern New York and its more industrial past

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a holiday with pronounced importance to the NBA, a basketball tradition with wall-to-wall action. The New York Knicks have played a game on MLK Day 38 times, the most of any NBA franchise. It’s an important day on the Knicks calendar and the players usually treat it as such.

But this year, the Knicks’ MLK Day experience was a nightmare, as they got blown out by the injury depleted Dallas Mavericks. The crowd at Madison Square Garden had seen enough and began booing their beloved basketball team. Those boos applied to the whole team’s effort but specifically seemed to be targeting one player: Karl-Anthony Towns.

Towns has had a tumultuous second season in New York, marked by inconsistent play, lackluster effort defensively, and a perceived lack of chemistry with face of the franchise Jalen Brunson. There is increasing pressure for the Knicks to trade Towns, in the hopes of acquiring a big man with more two-way potential. If that happens, KAT joins a long list of former Knicks big men to try and fail to capture the imagination of a fan base desperate to win. To uncover why this continues to happen it’s important to reflect on the culture of the city and to glance into the rafters and…