NEW YORK (USA) - Karl-Anthony Towns will make history as the only Dominican Republic player to ever start in the NBA All-Star Game when he runs onto the San Francisco Bay Arena court on February 16.
Towns, traded by the Minnesota Timberwolves to the New York Knicks in October, will be in the Eastern Conference line-up when the 74th NBA All-Star Game is staged.
Not surprisingly, this is being celebrated in the Dominican Republic.
It will be a huge honor for Towns, just as his first appearance in a FIBA Basketball World Cup game was on Friday, August 25, 2023, when he led the Dominicans to an 87-81 victory over the Philippines.
The 38,115 fans in a packed Philippine Arena was the largest crowd ever to witness a World Cup game and Towns took center stage by scoring 26 points and corralling 10 rebounds.
Towns had previously represented his country at the 2012 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, yet was just 15 years old.
He hardly played while watching Al Horford lead the team.
He saw a lot more action the following year at the FIBA AmeriCup, which was also in Venezuela.
Fast forward a decade and the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 in Manila was a completely different story.
"I was 15, yeah, it was dope", he told SLAM recently as can be heard in the Instagram post below.
It was cool to have that experience.
"Some really fun basketball, I learned a lot too. It was cool to have that experience. Then last summer, I get to have my own experience as Al Horford, you know position type, because you know when I played, I was like, bench. I ain’t even play, and when I went to the World Cup with them. It was like I stepped into Al’s position, so I was the one who got to be out there in those games. It was cool. It was cool to show out too."
Towns arrived with eight years of NBA experience under his belt in Minnesota and revealed himself to be a far more accomplished and dominant player, averaging 24.4 points and 8.0 rebounds per game.
In a Second Round game against Puerto Rico, Towns had 39 points.
That Towns is a starter in the NBA All-Star Game comes as no surprise because he has been excellent this season, averaging 24.9 points and 13.9 rebounds for the Knicks, who are second in the Atlantic Division with 31 wins and 16 defeats. They are just one game adrift of Boston (32-15) in the Atlantic.
It's a tremendous honor to be in the starting five for an All-Star Game, yet Towns places great importance on something else: representing his country the best way possible.
FIBA