Karl Anthony-Towns mouth wrote a check his shooting can’t cash

Karl Anthony-Towns once famously uttered the following statement, “I’m the greatest big man shooter of all time. That’s a fact. You can see the stats. I ain’t got to play like no one else. Everyone trying to find themselves to be the second version of me when I’m the first version. I don’t got to be the second version of someone else. I’m already an original. I don’t have to be a duplicate of someone else.” He said this to John Krawczynski of the Athletic.

This sparked a fun debate in regarding Towns and Dallas Mavericks’ legend Dirk Nowitzki. Nowitzki is actually the best big-man shooter of all time and most people know it. This series between the Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves provides a fun chance to review those statements.

Nowitzki once played a series against the Timberwolves and like this series has so far, that series involved three Mavericks wins in three games. Nowitzki shot 30-of-57 from the floor in that series, including 8-of-11 from three. He also shot 32-of-36 from the free throw line. These shooting numbers combined to give Nowitzki percentages of 52.6 from the field, 72.7 from three and 88.9 from the free throw line. This added up to a 68.6 true shooting percentage for Nowitzki, while averaging 33.3 points per game.

Towns has shot 15-of-54 from the field, 3-of-22 from three and 12-of-14 from the free throw line. These numbers have combined to give Towns percentages of 27.8 percent from the field, 13.6 percent from three, and 85.7 percent from the free throw line.

In a broader sense, Towns told us to look at the stats. For his playoff career, Towns has made 44-of-129 threes for a percentage of 34.1 percent. Nowitzki made 149-of-408 for a percentage of 36.5 percent.

The Dallas Mavericks have won the first three games of this series for a variety of reasons. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving have been brilliant. Dereck Lively II was breathtaking before Towns made his greatest contribution to the series by kneeing him in the neck(the play was more unfortunate accident than anything dirty by Towns). Derrick Jones Jr and PJ Washington have been superb defensively while contributing just enough shooting. But perhaps the biggest reason, is that the Minnesota Timberwolves don’t actually employ the greatest shooting big man of all time. The man who rightfully deserves that title, was in the building for Game Three though.

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