Karl-Anthony Towns, The World’s Best Shooting Center, Might Be Going Back To Power Forward

For all the talk in the NBA today about the importance of shooting at every position and the premium placed on floor-stretching bigs, who, exactly, are we talking about?

At the de facto power forward position, there are plenty of candidates. In a post-Dirk Nowitzki world, near-enough everyone is an outside shooter now, and even previous non-shooters such as Serge Ibaka, Pascal Siakam and John Collins are now valued for their spacing abilities. The few that aren’t have to have transcendent talents such as Giannis Antetokounmpo or Zion Williamson to overcome.

Indeed, many of the best centres are almost complete non-shooters. Robert Williams, Bam Adebayo, Kevon Looney, Rudy Gobert, Clint Capela, Deandre Ayton, Jarrett Allen, Richaun Holmes, Ivica Zubac, Steven Adams, Mitchell Robinson, Dwight Powell, Dwight Howard, Evan Mobley, Jakub Poeltl, Isaiah Stewart, Montrezl Harrell and Mason Plumlee are all starting (or at least frequent) centers in this league who do their jobs without having outside jumpers. If it is the norm, no one told half the league.

Among those at the five spot who do shoot from range regularly, results vary. For players such as Jonas Valanciunas, Jusuf Nurkic and Thomas Bryant, the attempts and results are still limited, and not something opponents game-plan for; for others such as Mo Bamba, Al Horford, Nikola Vucevic and Myles Turner, while they may be known for their willingness to shoot, they have only shot well from outside once. Turner shot 38.8% from three-point range in 2018/19 versus a career mark of 34.4%, Horford’s 42.9% in 2017/18 far outstrips the mid-30s range he is usually in, Vucevic’c 40.0% in 2020/21 is a clear outlier to his career, and while Bamba’s 107-281 for 38.1% shooting last season is definitely trending the right way, it needs to happen more than once to inspire confidence.

Beyond that, who is left? Aside from role players such as Mike Muscala and Kelly Olynyk, the pickings among the starters are slim. Joel Embiid, with back to back seasons above 37%, can be called a good three-point shooter these days, but Nikola Jokic has shot below 34% in five of his seven years in the league, and him taking any such look is a victory for the defense. Jaren Jackson Jr seems like the prototype, but the 31.9% he shot last season does not cement his place as a good shooter, and even his widely-anointed three-and-blocks predecessor Brook Lopez only shoots 34.1% from three for his career, never crosses the 37% threshold.

Considering that almost all these looks for almost all these players are not heavily contested, and the new normal of fives shooting threes has not quite embedded yet. It is true that the threat (occasional or perceived) of more centers taking jumpers expands the pick-and-roll options list, opens up the corners, creates driving opportunities for big and smalls alike and is still more efficient than much of the post-up player of yesteryear, but we are still some way from any top-tier offensive center also being a premier shooter.

Except one.

After hitting only 30 three-pointers in his rookie season, Karl-Anthony Towns has hit 749 in the six years since. He shoots for both volume and efficiency, hitting those 749 in exactly 400 games at an exact 40.0%, and the spot-up game has become both more prevalent (comprising 20% of possessions used, per Synergy Sports) and more efficient (1.105 points per possession, 76th percentile) than the inside game he came up with.

In the five-out era, be it a real thing or an ideal, the Timberwolves have the best version of it alive. Towns is the best shooting center the league has, and quite comfortably. Even Muscala would struggle with the volume and difficulty of Towns’s attempts. It is a huge offensive advantage to have. Why, then, do they seemingly want to move him to the power forward spot?

It seems as though the Wolves are in the running for at least two of the above. Matt Moore of Action Network is among the reporters to say that the Wolves are considering Gobert and Capela as targets. Both are exclusively centers, and both would require big minutes – if there was not a plan to play them big minutes, there would be no point in trading for them. Towns, then, would have to accommodate positionally.

The desire to pair Towns with such a type of talent comes from both the need to upgrade in talent to be competitive, and the need to shore up certain facts of the game. Regardless of what position Towns plays, the Timberwolves need help with rebounding, size and rim protection, and to that end last season, fourth-year forward Jarred Vanderbilt started 67 games for the Timberwolves, mostly alongside Towns. His averages of 6.9 points and 8.4 rebounds in only 25.4 minutes per game ensured that an otherwise-weak rebounding team ended up somewhere near the middle of the league in that category.

However, Vanderbilt is not a shooter, nor really an offensive player of any kind. His athleticism makes him a lob threat, but he has not the best hands to actually catch them, and anything beyond that is an unreliable bonus. A trade for a Gobert or Capela would therefore be intended as an upgrade on Vanderbilt, who as the third big off the bench would be very useful.

Upgrading Vanderbilt with a pure five, though, could cause problems. Notwithstanding the talent upgrade, having Vanderbilt in the line-up, who is a rangier defender than Towns, means Towns can stay back in the paint more, somewhere more theoretically suited to his lesser lateral quickness.

Towns is not a stand-out defender in any area of the court, and has a tendency to get into foul trouble, particularly when hanging back around the basket, yet having him spend more time having to check those same Giannis, Collins and Siakam types is surely not favourable. If the myriad occasional low-30% three-point shooting fives above occasionally burns a drop-defense KAT for a three-pointer, so be it – if fours do it, and run him off the court, it becomes more of a problem.

At the five spot, Towns is a true unicorn. At the four, his skills are less special and less distinct. Even if the defensive concerns are assuaged – and it could be argued that he may already be just as capable defending pick-and-rolls as he is the rim, which is not a strength despite his size – moving Towns to a more regular power forward role dilutes the very advantage he gives you. The Wolves give up a high field goal percentage at the basket and struggle to clear the glass, and help is undeniably needed in these departments is needed, but if it comes at the expense of their greatest advantage, they may not be greater than the sum of their parts.