While Knicks star Karl-Anthony Towns was the toast of New York City on Thursday after helping lead his team to the promised land, there’s an alternate universe out there where the All-Star center hits the Canyon of Heroes celebrating a championship in an entirely different sport.
In a phone interview with the Howard Stern Show on Tuesday, Towns, a well-known baseball fan, detailed just how close he came to opting for the national pastime as a youngster in New Jersey.
“I remember telling my dad one time, ‘I really want to quit basketball and play baseball,’” Towns told Stern. “That was the Dominican in me for sure, Howard, I’m not going to lie to you.”
Towns, who has played basketball on the Dominican National Team since 2012 -- he was 16 but more than held his own -- has long identified with baseball’s deep connections to the island. He is a devoted Yankees fan and has cited future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols as his favorite player growing up, and all these years later KAT was, well, less than thrilled with the D.R.’s narrow loss to Team USA in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
Towns, who has said he could touch the mid-80s off the mound in middle school, could have eventually put himself in a position to help Pujols’ Dominican squad himself. In addition, if KAT had made the Majors, he would have set a record simply by showing up as the tallest player in MLB history.
But given that he would end up as one of the top 10 high school basketball players in the country, he predictably settled on hoops en route to becoming an All-American at the University of Kentucky and the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.
“I just wanted to play nothing but baseball, I wanted to be a Yankee,” Towns told Stern. “It was something completely different to not have been the best at something, and to continue to have to prove to people that I could be as good or even better than who they say is the best.
“I was just able to go out there and have a bunch of fun and the pure joy of the sport.”
Ultimately, according to KAT, his buddies prudently coerced him back to the hardwood.
“I will never forget, my childhood friends called me and they were saying there was an AAU basketball tournament to play, and they really missed playing basketball with me,” Towns said. “And [they asked] if I would just join that weekend to play because I didn’t have a baseball tournament. They brought me back to the love of playing basketball, and I came back to the game and played my freshman year, I was back on the scene playing basketball and found myself back here, now as a New York Knick and as a champion.”
Obviously all is well that ends well, and most Yankees fans would probably trade having Towns jogging out of the bullpen in the Bronx for his contributions to the Knicks’ first championship team in 53 years.
Besides, KAT has found other ways to satisfy his love of the national title. Last summer, he showed he's still got some impressive skills on the diamond, and we hear he collects baseball cards …