Karl-Anthony Towns has big plans for his prize money if the Knicks win the NBA Cup Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
The Piscataway, N.J. native plans to donate $500,000 to youth sports programs in his native Dominican Republic if the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs.
“I feel very confident knowing the money will take care of the kids over in DR,” Towns said, per NBA TV.
Players on the championship team earn $530,933, and runners-up get $212,373.
Towns’ late mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, who passed from COVID in 2020, was Dominican and Towns last year announced he was giving major funding for a youth basketball facility near the city of Santiago.
“Simply put, they gave my mother life,” Towns told Time Magazine. “It’s only right I give them mine.”
He also hopes to compete for the DR in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Towns first played for the Dominican national team under head coach John Calipari when he was 15.
Calipari then successfully recruited the 7-footer from St. Joe’s-Metuchen to Kentucky, where he became the No. 1 overall pick of the 2015 NBA Draft.