Karl-Anthony Towns, Austin Reaves, and the Challenge of Being the 2nd Best Player

About this episode

The episode discusses Karl-Anthony Towns' postseason performance and its implications for players like Austin Reaves and roster construction in the NBA.

Karl-Anthony Towns is having a moment. After years of being seen in some circles as not quite good enough to be a critical piece on a winning team, KAT has had an incredible postseason, as the Knicks continue a pretty historic run of playoff dominance. It's not that he's never been good in the postseason before (he has) but he's never been THIS good. And who knows, may never be this good again. And it puts things in perspective, showing not only the bar you often need your 2nd guy to clear -- Jalen Brunson has scored 25 points a game in the Finals but with horrible efficiency -- but how often players in this role (see Holmgren, Chet) can fail to come through. Or even your number one, given Wemby's struggles. So does the whole postseason put Austin Reaves in a different framing? Does he seem as disappointing, given what appears to be some pretty good company on the continuum of guys who didn't achieve all the way to expectations? And what does all of this say about roster building more broadly? Because part of KAT's success, and the success of the Knicks more broadly, is that the first five guys on that roster are all really good NBA players. They counterbalance strengths and…

People in this episode

Hosts: Andy Kamenetzky, Brian Kamenetzky

Topics covered

• NBA playoffs
• player performance
• roster building
• second best player
• Austin Reaves
• Karl-Anthony Towns
• team dynamics

Keywords

• Karl-Anthony Towns
• Austin Reaves
• NBA playoffs
• Jalen Brunson
• roster building
• second best player
• Chet Holmgren
• Wemby

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Knicks, Rob Pelinka

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