After failing to impress during his first season on the New York Knicks, Julius Randle’s name keeps popping up on potential trade rumors a lot lately.
The summer of 2019 was not kind to the New York Knicks. After failing to secure the first pick in the NBA Draft despite a franchise-low 17 wins in that season, their free agency recruitment came to nothing as the league’s top superstars ultimately chose other destinations.
After all that, the front office decided to take a swing at Julius Randle, a player who was clearly brought in as a last resort to take home some of the money that the Kristaps Porzingis trade opened up for the Knicks.
Randle’s 2019-20 campaign wasn’t bad in all honesty, though a bit more was expected from the big man out of the University of Kentucky. After a career-best year with the New Orleans Pelicans in 2018-19, many thought Randle would approach all-star form, which he didn’t.
Randle’s first season with the Knicks can be perfectly summarized by simply pressing play on a video. And yes, this video is from five days ago.
Randle Stans: “You guys are too hard on him”
— Knicks Dude (@knicksdude) December 17, 2020
Randle: pic.twitter.com/14eM0YXzTO
As a result of his mediocre performances, the guys at the headquarters didn’t hesitate a second to select Obi Toppin with the eighth pick in the 2020 NBA Draft. Toppin being available so low was a surprise to many people and a blessing to the Knicks community.
As one would expect, head coach Tom Thibodeau is now faced with a tough dilemma. Play around your highest-paid and at the moment best player that has almost no potential for improvement, or try and build around an extremely promising and much cheaper draft prospect?
Even though the answer to this question is still unknown, we can say with certainty that these two cannot coexist. Randle would decelerate Obi’s development, while the latter would hurt Randle’s future free agency stock.
If this decision were up to the fans of the New York Knicks, then Randle would most definitely be the one to go. Let’s take a look at some potential trade partners that would be a better fit for Randle than the Knicks ever were.