Is Karl-Anthony Towns seriously about to get a ‘New York’ whistle?

Karl-Anthony Towns has spent his nine-year career in the NBA begging for fouls. Now that he’s in New York, there are early indications that Towns is going to get a superstar’s whistle.

Towns has never averaged more than 6.5 free-throw attempts per game in his career. In fact, in nine seasons with the Timberwolves he averaged 5.2 trips to the line per game, which pales in comparison to other high-volume scorers around the league. Giannis Antetokounmpo has averaged 9.5 to 12.3 free-throw attemps per game in six consecutive seasons. Joel Embiid has averaged no fewer than 10.1 trips to the line per game in five of the last six seasons.

Towns is expected to be the clear No. 2 scorer behind point guard Jalen Brunson in New York. In a preseason win over the Wizards Wednesday, Towns attempted a team-high 20 shots and got to the free-throw line 11 times. He finished his home debut at Madison Square Garden with 25 points and 12 rebounds in 28 minutes.

“He started off maybe pressing a little bit, first time here,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “I like the looks that he got. Just be patient. At the end of the day, it’ll work itself out. And it did. He stayed with it. He was not deterred. I thought he went to a little more playmaking and that led to more easy baskets. … He got going to the basket. He got to the line. He got a couple layups. He’s a very gifted scorer. He can score a lot of different ways. He can score at the 3-point line. He can score off the bounce. He can score back to the basket. So if one area’s not going, go back to the playmaking. That opens the floor up for everybody.”

It’s not exactly rare for Towns to reach double-digit free throws but it’s also not the norm. He had 10+ free-throw attempts in just four games last season and it happened just once in his injury-shortened 2022-23 season. He did it 14 times in 2021-22, with the previous season totals reaching 7, 6, 12, 5, 10 and 1 dating back to his rookie season in 2015-16.

That includes the playoffs. Add it all up and Towns has 60 games with double-digit free throws. Considering he’s played 605 career regular season and postseason games, it happens in only 10% of his games.

It’s just one preseason game, but Towns is going to be asked to score a lot in New York. He’s also back to playing center rather than power forward, which means he could find himself in better matchups where he can dominate slower centers rather than being match up with quicker power forwards like he was the past two years with the Timberwolves. The end result might be a lot of free throws for Towns.

Time will tell and the next piece of evidence will come Sunday when Towns and the Knicks host the Timberwolves in a preseason showdown that will get the national broadcast treatment with ESPN televising the game at 5 p.m. CT.