Towns and Nowitzki's games have been linked for years, but one clearly still has a ways to go in catching up to the other.
The New York Knicks are up 2-0 and headed back to the Big Apple in the 2026 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. Much of their success has come via two players who have ties to the Dallas Mavericks.
Jalen Brunson's connections are obvious, as he spent the first four seasons of the NBA career with the Mavs before joining the Knicks in free agency. For Karl-Anthony Towns, the connections are more loose, but remain somewhat of a talking point as he's made an impact on these playoffs.
Ever since Towns' viral 2021 statement that acclaimed himself as the greatest big man shooter in league history, fans and analysts have drawn that line, naturally, to Dirk Nowitzki, the 7-foot German and Naismith Hall of Famer, who most believe still holds that title over KAT.
Over at EssentiallySports, they are underlining that connection ... but noting how this year's playoff surge has put Towns even closer in comparison to Nowitzki.
But because of an odd accusation on the Mavs legend.
Writer Matt Issa finds correlation between the two as players who have rewritten narratives about themselves from playoff fallers to playoff risers.
Issa notes how Towns had built a reputation as a strong statistical producer in the regular season, but fails to meet those levels "when the lights got brighter and the opposition became fiercer." The author claims, this postseason in particular, that that has begun to change.
"This change – from faller to riser – immediately reminds me of what happened with Nowitzki," he continued. "Maybe I’m being lazy like the individuals I was poking at earlier, but the resemblance is too hard to ignore."
Nowitzki the notorious playoff faller?
Issa's argument here comes with weak justification of exactly two (2) playoff runs - the Mavs' 2006 Finals loss to the Miami Heat and the first-round exit to the Golden State Warriors in 2007. Team results, I might add, where Issa disregards Nowitzki's individual contributions.
Sure, Dallas came up on losing ends, but to call Nowitzki a playoff decliner after averaging 25 points and 10 rebounds in the playoffs throughout his career is wildly poor judgment.
Those years in the early 2000s, Nowitzki was an MVP and 50-40-90 achiever. I suppose failing to meet those numbers in the postseason is a "decline" of sorts ... but it doesn't drop him to anything much lower than superstar level.
Maybe the comparison comes because these are standards held absurdly higher than Towns' playoff career has ever reached, thus making Towns' success look like it rides on a similar trajectory.
The largest point missed here is how Nowitzki had always been the Mavs' No. 1 option. He put up those numbers while being the opposing defense's top assignment, and even in those lost series, he still produced on par or better than what Towns is currently doing in his best postseason ever.
In general, Towns has never been thought of as the Knicks' No. 1 option ... at any point this season, let alone in the biggest moments. He's certainly raised his level of play these playoffs, but the attention on him has not gotten close to meeting the pressure and expectations placed on Nowitzki as the team's centerpiece.
"But against the very best teams (which is what you typically see in the later rounds of the playoffs), Nowitzki struggled with the increased focus that defenses allocated towards stopping him," Issa claims about early in Dirk's career ... but he goes on to outline Nowitzki's playoff totals from that time.
As if averaging 25 points on 60 percent shooting - as the team's top option where one of those runs still ended in a Finals berth - is "struggling to adjust to increased focus."
This playoffs, Towns is averaging 17.3 points and 10.8 rebounds as the Knicks are two wins away from a title. That's actually below his regular-season averages of 20 points and 12 boards this year.
For his career, Towns has playoff averages of 19.2 points and 10.7 rebounds on 49 percent shooting. Those are lesser averages than his regular-season marks of 22.8 points and 11.1 rebounds on 52 percent shooting.
Here are Nowitzki's numbers:
via EssentiallySports.comEven disregarding the postseason, Dirk was the driving force of a team contending to win 50 games a year for a decade, and he played at an All-NBA level throughout.
Towns has yet to hit that peak at any point in his career, thus his playoff rise hasn't begun to scratch Nowitzki's standard that had been set long before.
Mavs fans know how it ended. Nowitzki, as Issa references, "dispelled" any narratives there were with his 2011 championship, a Finals MVP performance that saw him slay the Heat's newly-formed Big 3 in its first year of existence by averaging nearly 10 points per fourth quarter throughout the series.
Towns' Knicks can continue this stretch of double-digit playoff wins, and it will surely be mentioned in the conversation as one of the best runs in history.
But from an individual standpoint, does it get Towns closer to Nowitzki? In my book, the Knicks big man still got a ways to go.
