If the ad is understandably a TL;DR situation for you, KAT walks the reader through his trajectory as an ingenue proto stretch four from New Jersey who was embraced by what we can all agree has historically been a warm and welcoming environment for outsiders, that despite the disappointing result of that season, he’d be working hard on his body and his game to do better next time. The picture accompanying the text is KAT, posing with a basketball held at his waist, an eyebrow raised, giving the camera side eye with a look he clearly believes is conveying “Let’s get to work” but is giving something closer to “I got this portrait taken at JCPenney and I’m trying really hard to look tough”. The ad, and particularly the tryhard energy in its intent and execution, is the perfect distillation of why Towns is by far, currently the most annoying player in the NBA.
What makes KAT paradoxical is he probably lands somewhere around 0.1% in people who should have to try the least to be successful, on a basketball court or in life. He’s half Black and half Dominican, seven feet tall, and looks annoying — like the actor Justice Smith was rendered as a character on Brendon Small and Loren Bouchard’s squigglevision classic, Home Movies –– but he’s also objectively conventionally attractive. His dad was a coach and he was born gifted. Statistically, he’s close to the most skilled, sweet-shooting (career 40% from 3) big man who has ever played in the league . He’s had a charmed trajectory, a blue chip freshman at Kentucky who was drafted first overall in completely uncontroversial fashion by the Minnesota Timberwolves, and won Rookie of the Year. Over eight seasons, he has been named All-NBA third team twice, has made four All-Star teams, and won the 3-Point Competition at the 2021-2022 All-Star Weekend. When he puts his mind to it, he’s a talented rebounder and capable defender on the wing or when protecting the rim (particularly as an interchangeable component of the gigantic three-headed hydra Minnesota has assembled with Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid). If you wanted to build a stretchy big for the modern game in a lab, he would undoubtedly share many traits with KAT, or he’d just beKAT.
