Julius Randle Continues to Fight for New York’s Respect | The Knicks Wall

8 min readOct 2, 2023

What more do you want from him?

If you told me in 2019 that the New York Knicks would sign a forward who would go on to make two All-Star teams and two All-NBA teams and lead the team to the playoffs twice, I would sign up in a heartbeat, simultaneously promising the hoop gods I will cherish this savior.

That savior ended up being Julius Randle — and I have not kept that promise. Okay, savior may be a little extreme. But there is no debate that the Randle signing kick-started where the Knicks are today. Yet, you could argue that the fan base still doesn’t love him. This is not uncommon for star players in New York.

Patrick Ewing gave everything to the city and was not fully appreciated until he retired. Carmelo Anthony was treated like Andrea Bargnani towards the end of his tenure in NYC. Maybe it’s just a rite of passage…or maybe it goes a bit deeper. Either way, Julius Randle deserves your respect.

Second Choice

Let’s start at the beginning.

The mood swings toward Randle could be as simple as the fact that he was the guy the Knicks had to settle for instead of Kevin Durant.

Remember, Randle signed with the Knicks at the same time the Brooklyn Nets stole their summer plans by signing Durant and Kyrie Irving. Since then, however, the Nets have won a whopping one playoff series. Durant and Irving played a total of 74 games with each other in the three-and-a-half seasons they spent in Brooklyn.

While the drama built in Brooklyn, Randle quietly put the Knicks back on the map. His first season was a disaster, a campaign filled with spin moves into triple teams, poor defense montages, David Fizdale and a lot of losses. Since then, however, Randle has been the one constant in the Knicks’ rise from the league basement.

The Rise

Things turned around for Randle with the arrival of Leon Rose, William Wesley and Kenny Payne. All three men had strong ties to Kentucky, Randle’s alma mater and a place he saw great success, and wanted to help Randle turn the tide. Wesley, an executive vice president and senior advisor on basketball operations, in particular, asked Randle what he needed to be an All-Star, to lead the Knicks out of the gutter.

“I really need a coach to hold me accountable, I need a coach to push me,” Randle replied. That cleared the way for basketball junkie and borderline psychopath, Tom Thibodeau, to come in.

Thibodeau did not come alone. In addition to Thibs’ disciples like Dice Yoshimoto, the front office filled out the bench with respected coaches. Payne joined Thibodeau’s staff as well as former Knicks head coach Mike Woodson, and the true star of the bench, Johnnie Bryant, to serve as second-in-command.

The result was Randle having one of the most important seasons in franchise history , capped off one of the best single-season turnarounds. Randle took home the Most Improved Player award for 2021 and also hit his peak in popularity (so far), becoming the unofficial mayor of New York City heading into the playoffs. That is where the honeymoon came to an end.

Reality Check

Since that first-round exit to Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks things have not been quite the same. In his first playoff series, Randle struggled. In the five-game series, he averaged 18.0 points per game, 11.6 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and shot a chilly 29.8% from the field.

Time healed those immediate wounds, with the team rewarding his career campaign with a four-year $117 million extension to fanfare. The cheers would be short-lived.

In a deja vu feeling New York Jets fans are currently experiencing with Zach Wilson, it was as if Randle went back in time to the 2019–2020 season. His tunnel vision returned and his hot shooting vanished. Even worse, the poor performance lingered beyond those five games.

The following season saw Randle’s numbers come crashing down. Randle’s points per game went from 24.1 per game to 20.1. His rebounds per game dipped from 10.2 per game to 9.9 per game and assists went from 6.0 per game to 5.1. The biggest dip was in his three-point percentage which crashed worse than AMC stock, from a career-best 41.1% to 30.8%.

To make matters worse, the experiment of running it back with the same core proved to be foolish. The Nerlens Noel, Alec Burks and Derrick Rose extensions were flops. The Kemba Walker experiment was a gamble worth taking but did not pan out. And then there’s Evan Fournier, who managed to break the franchise record for three-pointers made in a season which will end up being his legacy as a Knick. RJ Barrett saw a similar statistical slump to Randle, all combining for an underwhelming 37–45 season.

The Thumbs-Down Spiral

In the middle of this reality check, Randle hit rock bottom in his relationship with the fans. It hit a boiling point during a game against the Boston Celtics at MSG: the now infamous thumbs-down .

The boo birds had returned to The Garden, especially when Randle touched the ball. They were out in the first half of that game, one the Knicks trailed 63–47 at the half and would trail by as much as 25 points. Randle had seven points on 3-for-9 shooting. The Knicks surged in the second half to win the game 108–105.

Randle had 15 points in the second half on a much better 5-for-11 from the field. But midway through the fourth quarter what could have been a feel-good win turned into a controversy.

Randle hit a tough layup with Al Horford draped on him to cut the lead to 96–92 and gave a thumbs-down as he ran back on defense. If there was any confusion as to who the thumbs-down was intended for, Randle made that clear after the game.

No, it was not a shot at Horford for his defense. He was telling the fans to shut the fuck up.

“I really don’t give a fuck what anybody has to say, to be honest,” Randle said after the game. “I’m out there playing. Nobody knows the game out there better than I do, compared to what everybody has to say. So I really don’t give a shit. I just go out there and play.”

It is a bit ironic how out of hand the situation got from there, given Randle had a very New York reaction. But as we have learned, fans love the one-way street of being able to love and hate while the players must only love. Sadly, Randle bore the brunt of the hypocrisy and has not been able to shake it since.

The Return

Jalen Brunson’s arrival helped take the attention off him in more ways than one. On the court, Brunson took over playmaking duties which allowed Julius Randle to focus on scoring and rebounding, two areas he returned to form in, in a big way.

In a year full of good vibes, Randle averaged a career-high 25.1 points per game while also returning to 10.0 rebounds per game. He scored a career-high 57 points in one game, eclipsed 40 four other times and sunk the Miami Heat on a crazy game-winner.

Julius Randle scores 57 points in front of the Garden crowd and the first 50+ point game by a Knick since Melo in 2014 (3/20/23) pic.twitter.com/s6MZeQfeyn
- The Knicks Wall (@TheKnicksWall) May 26, 2023

His return to form also included a second All-Star team and second All-NBA team selection in three seasons. With Randle back to performing at a high level and Brunson enjoying a breakout season from Brunson the Knicks landed the fifth seed in the East.

Unfortunately, the good times were cut short for Randle. An ankle sprain in the first half of a home game against the Miami Heat at the end of March torpedoed his season. He would miss the final five games of the regular season, and return for the first-round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Randle gutted out a 19-point, 10-rebound performance including a crucial rebound to help seal Game 1. He would gut out nine more playoff games, but it was clear the ankle was hindering Randle’s ability to be the Julius Randle from the regular season.

The Knicks were able to get their first playoff series win since 2013 and could have gone even further with a healthy Randle to help a resurgent Barrett and Brunson. Despite the clear injury, Randle bore the brunt of the fan anger after the team was eliminated by the Heat.

A few loser fans went as far as to rip down a poster of Randle and stomp it out outside of MSG following the elimination game.

Randle has kept a low profile over the summer while Brunson, Barrett and Josh Hart played in the FIBA World Cup. Last we saw though, Randle was working out with Johnnie Bryant and looked to be in shape for the season.

Still Looking for Love

How Randle will ever repair his relationship with the fans remains to be determined. The only possible leap left for him is producing in the playoffs. In the 15 playoff games he has played in his career, Randle has averaged 17.1 points, 9.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game, and has shot 34.4% from the field, 28.3% from three, and 75.6% from the free throw line. Those numbers could all use a bump, assuming the Knicks can get back to the playoffs.

If the team fails to reach the playoffs, you can bet Randle will catch the ire of fans somehow. And maybe the hate is as simple as the fact that Randle’s game is not the most aesthetically pleasing.

Randle fights for every point, every rebound. It is both the reason you love him and why you hate him. There are moments where his frustration boils over. There are moments when his New Yorker temperament leads to .

All in all, though, there is no mistaking what Randle has brought to the Knicks. Similar, (but much more sustainable) to Amar’e Stoudemire, Randle’s arrival was the catalyst in the Knicks righting the ship.

It has been a rollercoaster in Randle’s first four years in Gotham. Knicks fans are incredibly loyal but have short tempers too. In 10 or 20 years from now, Randle’s legacy will be a good one, and the fans will embrace him as they did after the fact with other team legends.

That should be the light at the end of the tunnel for Randle — if popularity even matters to him. Randle and the Knicks were a good fit for more than basketball reasons. Like any New Yorker, Julius Randle can be the coolest person, and he can also keep it real with you and tell you to shut the fuck up.

What is not up for debate though, is that he deserves his flowers now, because regardless of your opinion, Julius Randle has helped bring the Knicks back to relevancy.

Originally published at https://theknickswall.com on October 2, 2023.