An Ode to Julius Randle, the Original Modern Knick

It was perhaps appropriate that Julius Randle’s final act as a New York Knick was partly headlined by a young New Yorker thanking him.

Randle was part of the sizable Knicks contingent on hand for the groundbreaking of the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball School in The Bronx on Wednesday. He appeared alongside head coach Tom Thibodeau and was flanked by several Knicks legends, including Walt “Clyde” Frazier, John Starks, and “The Pearl” himself.

During the ceremony, student Janiyah David thanked Randle for his most vital assist, a $1.3 million donation raised through his “30 for 3” program. The court at the new school will bear Randle’s name and reference the three All-Star appearances he made in a Knick uniform.

Little did Randle, or anyone in attendance, know that the wheels were in motion for him to join the list of Knicks alumni sooner rather than later.

Randle is heading north, as Shams Charania and Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic have reported that the Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves have agreed to a trade that will send Karl-Anthony Towns to Manhattan. Randle is set to be one of the headlining pieces alongside Donte DiVincenzo with numerous biy players set to join them in the name of salary stabilization.

Wednesday’s event unknowingly served as Randle’s farewell tour, one where his accomplishments on the hardwood were rightfully downplayed, but one can’t help but notice the easygoing parallels in hindsight.

Randle had already rasied the city’s basketball prospects through a revamped game, showcasing brilliant outside efforts that were extraordinarily unexpected after starting his career as a more traditional power forward between Los Angeles and New Orleans.

He and the Knicks more or less grew up together. Upon his metropolitan arrival in 2019, he was struggling to live up to his billing as the seventh overall pick in the draft from five years prior and the Knicks were struggling to make any sort of headway on the NBA leaderboards. Heck, when Randle turned out to be the Knicks’ primary yield in a free agency headlined by Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, the team came just short of outright apologizing in their subsequent releases.

Instead, Randle began to build toward something better, canceling out metropolitan misfires such as the drafting of Kevin Knox or the hiring of David Fizdale. Originally starring as a silver lining, Randle began to push the Knicks as a quiet beacon before taking center stage of an unexpected playoff run by the 2020-21 campaign.

Despite the brutal result in his debut (a 21-45 record that denied the Knicks entry to the Walt Disney World bubble), Randle made a lasting impression on the notoriously hard-to-please Thibodeau upon his own entry once New York cleared house.

“When I first got hired I asked him to come in so we could spend some time, just to get to know each other,” Thibodeau told ESPN’s Nick Friedell after Randle won the NBA’s Most Improved Player title in 2021. “When he came in, you never know the type of shape someone’s in, I had an impression of him from coaching against him. I knew he was talented and all those things, but you don’t know who the person is … he was in incredible shape. So I was working him out myself and I saw his work capacity.”

“You could see how highly motivated he was,” Thibodeau continued. “I felt like this was the guy that could help set the tone for us. And then he improved in every facet of the game. It’s his passing — we always knew he had the ability to drive the ball, to post-up — but then adding the three.”

For better and worse, the Knicks went where Randle took them for quite some time. When he flourished, New York did likewise, and his shortcomings were equally noteworthy, such as the notoriou thumbs down when offered a sarcastic Bronx cheer amidst a thrilling victory over Boston. The good, in the end, drastically outweighed the bad, a good part of which was endured for reasons beyond anyone’s control (i.e. injuries that affected each of the last New York postseason runs).

Randle’s metropolitan legacy is perhaps one that’s incomplete at first glance: in addition to the injury-marred playoff runs, he struggled during the 2021 postseason and never got the Knicks over the second-round hump. He also never got a chance to rectify it: Randle’s final minutes in a Knick uniform were literally painful, as he endured a shoulder injury in a January win over Miami that proved to be season-ending.

But Randle undoubtedly leaves the Knicks franchise in a better place than when he found it. Perhaps he should embark on a career in politics, as he made Knicks association great again.

Thanks to Randle’s breakout, the Knicks rediscovered long-lost luxuries denied to them throughout the new decade: they didn’t have to beg superstars to come or overcompensate in high-profile trades. The Knicks had an identity, a face, a solution, and it made Manhattan an attractive basketball destination that proved to be not only exciting but sustainable as well.

Simply put, modern Knicks history, a successful decade to date that finally threatens to continue what Carmelo Anthony started, begins with Randle. Without him, there is no “‘Nova Knicks,” there is no patience and restraint when it comes to shrewd negligence like the Donovan Mitchell deal, there is no foundation or template to work with.

As he signed with the Knicks in the summer of 2019, Randle referred to signing with the Knicks as “a dream come true.” Fans’ fantasies, at least some of them, were equally fulfilled in that span.

“I had a lot of options. I felt this opportunity, for me, was the greatest opportunity,” Randle said, per Marc Berman of the New York Post. “I don’t think there’s a better place in the NBA to win than the Knicks.”

Thanks to Randle … even in absentia … the basketball world may soon learn if that’s true.

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