Knicks’ Julius Randle to Warriors? Analyst Weighs In

The New York Knicks might be looking to trade Julius Randle at some point before February’s deadline considering he has a player option in his contract at the end of the season.

The potentially expiring deal gives the Knicks some urgency to either sign him to a long-term extension or trade him to a team that pays up the most for his services.

A team that could be looking to add some strong win-now talent is the Golden State Warriors, but Bleacher Report writer Andy Bailey believes Randle is a bad fit for what they are trying to do.

“The Warriors probably just need to make any kind of talent play this offseason, but trading for Randle isn’t the one to make,” Bailey writes. “He’s productive, but it wouldn’t get much more “square peg in a round hole” than Randle’s ground-and-pound game in Golden State’s read-and-react offense.”

It would be difficult to see the Knicks trade Randle at all, even if the two sides are far apart on a new contract. If a trade were to happen, it would likely be a sign-and-trade at the end of the season when the Knicks aren’t competing for a title.

New York wants to put all its chips into the basket for the upcoming season, and trading Randle would add a lot of difficulty on the road to a championship.

Randle averaged 24 points per game last season and won’t come cheap, even on an expiring deal. While the Warriors have a lot of future draft capital to replenish what the Knicks lost in the Mikal Bridges deal and young forward Jonathan Kuminga, who could fit right into Randle’s vacated role, a trade between New York and Golden State isn’t plausible at this moment in time.

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