Projecting the 20 most promising young duos in the NBA

10. R.J Barrett and Julius Randle (New York Knicks)

The Knicks entered the 2019 offseason hoping to land Zion Williamson in the draft and Kyrie Irving in free agency.

They wound up getting a Zion look-alike in Julius Randle in free agency, and in the draft they landed R.J. Barrett, who like Irving is a Duke University product whose father played pro basketball.

So there’s that.

What in many ways was a letdown of an offseason for the Knicks actually did bear some promising fruit, in all honesty.

Barrett, the No. 3 pick in the draft, has the look of an immediate impact player in the pros. The 6’7″ wing set a handful of school and conference records in his freshman year at Duke, including the Blue Devils’ single-game freshman scoring mark (33 points) in his debut and the ACC freshman season scoring mark.

The 19-year-old Barrett averaged 22.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game while sharing the court with fellow lottery picks Williamson and Cam Reddish.

Randle, a 24-year-old power forward, has been billed as a future star in his stints with the Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans. After averaging 21.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game for NOLA last season, he may have found his long-term home with the Knicks, who signed him to a three-year, $62.1 million contract after they failed to acquire top targets Irving and Kevin Durant.

As always, the biggest question with this franchise is can they get their management situation together and avoid the internal drama long enough to put a real team together with a sustainable future.

Barrett and Randle are two very good pieces to start the process, even if they were more Plan B (or Plan C) than Plan A.