Night after night, a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden is never short on its luminaries.
Attend a game, and you might rub shoulders with Ben Stiller, John McEnroe, Jon Stewart, or Spike Lee. Or you might find yourself surrounded by Knicks legends like Patrick Ewing, Stephon Marbury, or Carmelo Anthony.
On and off the court, there is no dearth of star power at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
In that vein, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson were both named starters to the 2025 Eastern Conference All-Star team. The duo became the first pair of Knicks (Earl “The Pearl” Monroe and Walt “Clyde” Frazier accomplished the feat in 1975) to start an All-Star Game in the same season.
The news arrived on the same day KAT was featured as the cover athlete on the February/March edition of “SLAM Magazine.”
Towns, an Edison, NJ native, has openly shared his Dominican roots, embracing the spotlight in ways very few have in New York.
Late in the fourth quarter against the Hawks on MLK Day, KAT trapped Trae Young, still reviled in New York, deep in the corner, forcing a turnover that drew massive cheers from the MSG crowd. A day later, against Brooklyn, Towns became the quickest Knick to amass 1,000 and 550 rebounds, doing so in just 40 games.
Second in the league to only Domantas Sabonis in total rebounds (555) and average rebounds per game (13.9), KAT pulls down nearly a third of the team’s 43.2 RPG (seventh-worst in the NBA, a stat they will need to clean up come playoff time). They rank among the top-15 scorers in the league at 25.1 PPG behind teammate Jalen Brunson, who is ninth at 26.0 PPG.
Together, Brunson and KAT lead an offensive attack that ranks eighth in PPG (116.6) and sixth in 3P% (37.5). They command the second-best offensive efficiency (118.9) in the NBA, behind only the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Despite starting 6-6 in January, including three straight losses to begin the month, the Knicks have won five of their last six games, pulling them to just 1.5 games behind the Boston Celtics for the East’s second seed.
Though depth remains a point of deficit (Precious Achiuwa seems to be the only frontcourt option off the bench until Mitchell Robinson returns), the Knicks feature a starting five in which every player is a threat to score from nearly any spot on the floor, an offensive output Cam Payne and Miles McBride maintain with what little minutes they play off the bench (Payne at 14.7 MPG and Deuce at 23.5 MPG). In particular, Payne embodies the “shot in the arm” type of player who oozes offense, recently scoring 18 points in 13 minutes against Minnesota and 10 points in 12 minutes against Atlanta, while Deuce, always a threat from deep, infuses much-needed defensive effort.
Of course, there are troubling signs. Thibs regularly deploys an eight-man rotation, shaving minutes from players like the recently traded Jericho Sims and Landry Shamet while refusing to test others like Tyler Kolek. On the bright side, rookie Ariel Hukporti’s recent stretch of promise provides hope.
Perhaps more troubling is the bucket the head coach cares most about: They do not defend as well as last season.
They often get outrebounded, which allows pesky teams like the Chicago Bulls, Atlanta Hawks, and Detroit Pistons, which are ranked seventh, ninth, and tenth in the NBA in rebounding averages, respectively, to steal wins from them.
They are uncharacteristically sluggish in the third quarter, often letting teams down double digits to crawl back, a telltale reason for losses like their first OKC matchup to start the month, wherein the second quarter, they looked like they could contend with anybody in the league despite the eventual 117-107 defeat.
Will the Knicks’ star power be prepared enough to will them past the best in the NBA? On a team that is only as good as their stars, Brunson and KAT hope the answer is “yes.”
