The Julius Randle Question

Let's talk about the elephant in the room.

Good morning! The NBA Finals are set, but today we focus our attention on a player that has come to define the Knicks more than any other in recent memory. As always, the discussion is…

Complicated.

🗣️ News & Notes ✍️

🏀 The Philadelphia 76ers have hired Nick Nurse to be their next head coach. Nurse reportedly picked this job over the opening in Phoenix, apparently because he’s enamored with the idea of coaching reigning MVP Joel Embiid. As such, any dreams of Embiid hitting the market this summer probably go by the wayside.

The Bucks, meanwhile, have filled their coaching opening with former Tom Thibodeau assistant coach Adrian Griffin.

🏀 Congrats to the Miami Heat for going into Boston and winning a Game 7 in convincing fashion after a heartbreaking loss in Game 6. Jayson Tatum turning his ankle in the opening minutes didn’t help, but there was no question which of these teams was more prepared to play. The Heat continue to prove that they are no fluke, and that there is something special about the way they go about their business as an organization. Credit to them for being unquestionably the East’s dominant franchise over the last two decades.

Maybe shoulda’ given Riley the piece of the franchise he wanted.

The Julius Randle Question

A few days after the season ended, KFS reader and longtime fan Mike Pressman made me chuckle when, in his personal postseason assessment, referred to Julius Randle as the little girl with the curl.

A more fitting description, I have never heard.

Inspiring. Perplexing. Maddening. Tantalizing. Frustrating. And of course, WHATTHEFUCKAREYOUDOING?!?!

All utterances Randle has inspired over the last four years.

There is perhaps no player in the NBA that matches his unique combination of skills, physical abilities, and of course, pitfalls. At the moment, following another playoff run that left much to be desired, Randle’s negative attributes are front and center. But this season also provided us with perhaps the highest highs of his nine-year career.

One of those highs came in late March, when Julius came into the Garden and put forth one of the greatest scoring displays the building has ever seen. I wrote an entire newsletter celebrating that 57-point performance, but it never saw the light of day as Willis Reed passed away less than 24 hours later.

Some highlights from that dismissed missive:

• Of the 57 different players to reach 57, all but six eventually appeared in at least three All-Star games. The exceptions (besides, for the moment, Randle): Joe Fulks and Jerry Stackhouse are two-time All-Stars; Michael Redd, Calvin Murphy and Fred Brown made it once, and Purvis Short, who reached 57 points twice in 1984 but never make an All-Star team.

• Current players in the 57+ club: James Harden (9x), Damian Lillard (6x), Devin Booker (3x), Steph Curry (2x), Kyrie Irving (2x), LeBron James (2x), Russell Westbrook (2x), Donovan Mitchell, Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jayson Tatum, Bradley Beal, Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and because he hasn’t yet officially retired yet, Kemba Walker. With maybe one or two exceptions, every player at their peak was or is generally considered to be a top-two player on a title team.

• After that performance, Julius Randle moved up to 18th on the league scoring leaderboard with an average of 25.6. He’d finish in 19th, at 25.1 points per game - the 10th highest in Knicks history, behind only Hall-of-Famers Bernard King, Richie Guerin, Carmelo Anthony, Patrick Ewing and Bob McAdoo, and five-time All-NBA selection Amar'e Stoudemire. In career scoring average as a Knick, Randle’s 22.3 points trails just McAdoo, King, Anthony and Ewing.

That’s the company that 57-point outing put him in.

So why, you might ask, didn’t I just run the column a few days later? Because Randle’s next game was a total dud in Miami - a loss in which Jalen Brunson went down injured. With Brunson on the shelf, New York then went on to lose their third straight - an embarrassing performance against the Magic in which we were all reminded of the value of our starting point guard, and how a Randle-led unit is anything but a safe bet to get an “easy” win. At no time did it seem fitting to shower praise upon the two-time All-Star, especially with Julius picking up technical fouls in three straight games, including in Orlando where he got in Immanuel Quickley’s face after IQ tried to divert him from the ref.

Julius rebounded with a solid game against the lowly Rockets, but injured his ankle two nights later against the Heat. Just like that, his regular season was over.

It was a 10-day stretch that defined why Julius Randle inspires such a wide swath of emotions. That 10-day stretch, to say nothing of a month’s worth of uninspiring postseason basketball, is why the only wrong answer to New York’s Julius Randle question is that the answer - whatever it is - is an easy one. Do you think it’s foolish to consider trading a player who was All-NBA for the second time in three years? Your stance has merit. Are you convinced the Knicks will never win anything unless they either move on from Randle or insulate and/or marginalize him to a degree that his downturns and outbursts will no longer be a death knell to their efforts? Grab a spot in line, you have ample company.

In recent NBA memory, perhaps only Russell Westbrook has inspired the diversity of opinions that Randle has. Russ won the damn MVP and still had detractors saying no team that featured him would ever capture the NBA’s ultimate prize. For all of Westbrook’s gifts, his unique combination of attributes made it difficult for some to envision how he could fit on a championship roster with a star-level usage rate.

I had many of the same concerns about Randle last summer, and wrote about why the Knicks absolutely had to trade their starting power forward if it was the last thing they did, regardless of the return - or perhaps even the cost. Until the Cavs series, it was the most widely commented-on newsletter I’d ever written. The mix of opinions was as you’d expect: some thought I was crazy, while others wanted me to be louder for the folks in the back.

It turns out I was dead wrong. Even the harshest Randle critic would likely admit that New York doesn’t win 47 games without him. At the very least, even after a poor showing in the playoffs, his value is much higher than it was a year ago, when he had an additional season on his contract and was coming off a horrendous shooting campaign punctuated by Thumbs Down-gate.

Now, again, there is a chorus of fans demanding that the Julius Randle era come to a close so New York’s championship window can open in earnest. This is easier said than done for a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that coming to an accurate assessment of Randle’s value is as complicated now as it ever has been. Shortly after the Miami series, Benjy Ritholtz nailed some of why that is:

In the conversation surrounding Randle since New York was eliminated, Benjy’s second and especially third points haven’t gotten as much attention as the first.

After sustaining his second ankle injury in less than a month in Game 5 vs Cleveland, the notion that he was going to be himself vs perhaps the best defender in all of basketball was probably a silly one to begin with. The tough part is that there was another All-Star in the same series who was also hobbled, and two if you count absolutely-should-have-been-an-All-Star Jalen Brunson. Brunson was incredible, while all Jimmy Butler did was adjust his game accordingly, to the point that his injury was barely noticeable. Was there a world where Randle leaned into more of a screen & dive role, using his physicality to open up opportunities for teammates and get his own points via the offensive glass? We’ll never know, because he kept trying to take it to Adebayo as if nothing was wrong. Should his inability or unwillingness to adjust be held against him? Or should we lionize his willingness to keep playing even as he knew he wouldn’t be able to perform like normal? As is the case with all Randle discussions, the answer is murky.

If these were the only questions being asked, the Julius conversation would be far simpler, but of course there’s more going on. There is simply no way around Randle’s occasional lack of hustle, his shot selection, his defensive in-attention and his lack of execution. George Carlin routines weren’t as comical as some of Randle’s close outs, while his unwillingness to play any semblance of transition defense was as demoralizing as any part of that series.

And then there is his shooting in the playoffs. This is now two postseasons worth of production that is not just poor, but abysmal. In these playoffs, 33 players have posted at least a 23 usage rate while playing at least 10 minutes a night. Randle’s 43.2 effective field goal percentage is the lowest of the group.

Worst of all, as with all bad Randle games, we often knew from the opening tip that we were getting one of those efforts from Julius. It’s one thing when a role player doesn’t have it on a given night. When it’s a foundational piece of the offense, it makes it much harder for a team to operate with any degree of cohesion.

Sometimes there is an available pivot. In Game 4 against Cleveland, Tom Thibodeau went with Obi Toppin down the stretch instead of bringing Randle back in and it was arguably the difference in the game. A similar scenario unfolded after the first quarter of Game 5 against Miami, when the Knicks looked dead in the water until Toppin again injected life into the Garden and helped extend New York’s season for a few more days.

But there are limits to how much and how often a coach can pivot away from an All-NBA player, especially when his backup (as are most backups) is up and down himself, and more importantly, when that All-NBA player is as temperamental as this one seems to be. We’ve long wondered about the impact that Randle’s volatility has on the rest of the locker room. Whether this is more of an issue than we’ve been led to believe is anyone’s guess.

Of course, all of the above needs to be taken in some very necessary context, which is that the decision to continue forward with Randle or move him this summer is not New York’s alone. Given the unexpected success of the team and the undoubted desire to take a step forward next year, the front office will not trade a two-time All-Star unless they’re sure they’re improving the team in some way - maybe in the short term, but definitely in the long run.

It’s tempting to suggest a scenario where the Knicks move Randle for a high level role player and draft assets that they can then flip in a star trade package down the line, but finding such a trade is hard, even if the front office did think it wise. Doing so also conveniently ignores the fact that New York was incredibly reliant on Randle’s shot creation and general gravity on offense this season. It’s easy to have recency bias with such a poor postseason, but this is a player who topped 30 points 20 times this year, with the Knicks going 16-4 in those games. When he’s on, New York rarely loses, and he’s on enough of the time that you can’t just dismiss that benefit out of hand.

Think about how many games Julius came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, nailing three after three and staking the Knicks to a lead they’d never relinquish. He finished the season with 703 first quarter points - more than anyone in the league besides Luka. He was also the only player to have at least 100 made triples in first quarters alone (on a 39 percent clip, no less!) with his 104 topping Klay Thompson’s 88 by a wide margin. It’s easy to discount this and point to Randle’s diminishing returns as games went on (he shot 34 percent, 28 percent and 33 percent from deep in the other three quarters, respectively), but it all needs to be taken into account when considering the future of such a pivotal piece of the team.

The reality is that the Knicks are hamstrung in any potential Randle move in two ways, both of which are self-inflicted. As a CAA client in an organization that has billed itself as a family under Leon Rose, New York is not going to ship Randle off to someplace he doesn’t want to be. Whether you like or loath the idea of Karl-Anthony Towns as a Knick, I’ll believe Julius ends up in Minnesota when I see it¹.

The other limiting factor is what I referred to earlier: even with a rotation that is so young, is New York’s front office going to willingly take a step backwards next season, even if they think it will pay off in the long run? If there is a team that had young assets and/or picks and wanted to acquire Randle, how willing would the front office be to replace Randle’s All-NBA level production with that of a young player still learning the ropes? On the flip side, if a team out there is willing to deal their star, would they want Randle as part of the return package?

All of the above could leave the Knicks with few realistic trade options even if they decide that a pivot is in order. The only scenario I can envision is a three-teamer where a) a bad team that wants to win now truly values Randle’s guaranteed production, b) has good stuff by way of picks and young players that they’re willing to send out in a trade, c) a third team with a better star than Randle wants to pivot into a rebuild, and d) there are intervening factors that would prevent these other two teams from simply making a two-team deal and leaving the Knicks and Randle out of it.

Does such a trade exist? I can think of one, and it starts with Houston. Randle is from Texas and the Rockets seem desperate to win next season. They’re also so far under the cap that matching salary in a trade might be easier than normal. If there was ever a team that might pay face value for Randle’s production, potentially sending young players and/or draft equity to a third team who would then send a star player to the Knicks, it might be them.

And who might that third team be? Washington just hired Michael Winger to run basketball operations and the hire is reportedly contingent on his being able to tear things down if he so chooses. They are stuck in mediocrity with a $50 million a year star who also happens to have a no trade clause. Could Bradley Beal force his way to the Knicks in a three-team deal?

The better question may be whether New York even pulls the trigger. Randle is owed just $53 million in the next two years combined - nearly as much as Beal makes next season alone. What if the Wizards demanded some goodies from the Knicks to close the deal? It’s no sure thing they jump at the chance to do so. Toronto and Pascal Siakam? He’s expiring and in line for a 30 percent max in 2024. Siakam and Brunson probably aren’t enough star power to helm a title team, but them plus a third star might be. Maybe the Knicks swing a trade now and bide their time until the final piece to the puzzle emerges.

(Adding this in paragraph late Monday night after Boston lost and Jaylen Brown had an utterly abhorrent game punctuated by eight - eight - turnovers. Brown is eligible to extend for five years and $295 million, and even so, I hadn’t seriously considered the possibility he could be on the table…until now. If the unpalatable taste from this game and series gives the Celtics’ brass pause in opening up their checkbook and they decide to shop Brown’s expiring contract, I wonder what the bidding for his services would look like around the league. Assuming Boston’s priority is to remain contenders, could they get a better present-day under-30 player than Julius, while surely picking up some draft assets in the process? Given their luxury tax concerns, Randle’s relatively cheap contract might be especially attractive. Just a thought.)

Or we have the far more likely scenario: a redux of last summer, when the Knicks felt confident that adding talent around Randle would raise not only his ceiling individually, but the team’s ceiling as well. With Julius and Jalen both on very manageable contracts, the Knicks have the ability to acquire a big money player without having to be concerned with impending salary cap issues that so many teams have to worry about under the new CBA. The simplest path for them, by far, involves keeping Randle on the roster and using their other assets to upgrade elsewhere.

And that’s the path I’m betting they choose. If that’s the way they go, the Julius question won’t go away anytime soon. Even if he gets relegated to a third cog, his shortcomings can still hurt them in a high level playoff series. Whether they can survive those issues won’t be answered until next spring.

Such is life with Julius Randle, with whom unpredictability is the only certainty.

They’ve walked this tight rope for four years. Expect a fifth to be on the way.

🏀

That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter

1. A Randle for Towns deal doesn’t make sense for several other reasons, to be clear.