Julius Randle wanted to get a job. This did not surprise Tyler Relph a bit. Relph has been training Randle for more than a decade, returning to Randle’s days at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Dallas. Already at the age of 15, Randle understood the value of sweat equity.
But it was something else. It was different.
When the NBA stopped its season in March, Randle flew to his hometown and kept practicing, and that would be a temporary break. He and Relph fall into an old routine: training, conditioning, staying sharp for the call that the Knicks can play again.
It never did. There would be a bubble in Orlando, and most of the league would go there, but the Knicks were left out. Their season was over. And something beats in the man who averaged 19.5 points and 9.7 rebounds during a mostly forgettable season.
“Can’t he play while all the other guys in the league are playing?” Say Relph laughing. “It drove him crazy.”
Not long after, Relph called on his cell phone. Randle.
“Let’s go to work,” he said.
“Of course,” Relph said. “Just tell me where and when.”
“Stay where you are,” Randle told him. ‘We’re moving back to Dallas. We’re buying a house. I’m coming to you. Let’s go.”
Relph laughs at the memory.
“I have known you for many years,” he said. “He did not make a joke.”
He was not. In the past, off-season work would usually take place in Los Angeles or in New York, wherever Randle was, a few weeks here, a few weeks there. Sometimes they vacationed together and he would always be up at 6am to go to the gym, then FaceTime, his weight trainer, and then depart on a 20-mile bike ride through Miami.
“At one point I thought he wanted to relax,” Relph says. ‘But he never did. Not once. It was different. It was every day. ”
Some days it meant the two would meet at a gym at 6am and have to drill footwork, and worked on Randle’s lap, 90 minutes of uninterrupted grinding. Three or four times a week, it was just the second stop on the itinerary, as Randle would open his old high school gym at 5 a.m. to fire up jumpers alone, the first bundle of 1,200 he made every day, every week, every month , for nine months.
Soon, Relph introduced himself to a weight trainer named Melvin Sanders, and the two men immediately hit it off.
“You like it when you not only set up his workout, but train with him,” Relph says. ‘It’s Melvin. And that’s me. Thanks to Ju I am now in a better condition than when I played at university. I have no choice; otherwise I will never keep up. ”
Relph, a native of Rochester, NY, spent two years in West Virginia and two years in St. Louis. Bonaventure played and caught the coaching bug after injuring his knee after the finish. He was an apprentice under Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt. In 2010, he decided to become a personal basketball coach and moved to Dallas.
This is where he met Randle, who was already a premature talent, who would have a great first year in Kentucky before heading to the Lakers with the seventh pick of the 2014 draft. He played four years in LA, moved to New Orleans for a very productive 2018-19 season and then signed a $ 63 million three-year deal with the Knicks.
“He’s the hardest worker I’ve ever seen,” Relph says. ‘Far away. You know, it’s not easy to get an average of 20 and 10 and 3 in the NBA. You do not do this just by showing up. But even by that standard, he took it to an incredible level this summer. ‘
Every day Randle showed up at the gym. Sometimes they had three separate workouts, and that did not include the weight sessions with Sanders.
“We had nothing but time,” Relph says, “and he did not want to waste any of it. We had nine months. Then I said to him, ‘Let’s be an all-star. Let’s try to make you one of the best players in the league. ‘We’re back to what we did before. Footwork, good to make sure he gets to spots quickly. Over and over. Every day.”
Relph emphasizes the importance of using a dribble, or two, to get a chance whenever needed; when he twice saw Randle use the move to shake off Giannis Antetokounmpo in the Knicks’ third game of the season, he shouted for joy over the television set.
Despite all the hard work, the most important moment of the summer took place on July 30, when the news came that the Knicks had appointed Tom Thibodeau. Immediately, Relph thought it would be a perfect marriage.
“I knew what it was going to be,” Relph says. “I told him, ‘You’re going to play 40. [minutes] every night. If you play hard, let Thibs let you go. “We did not know he wanted him to be a point ahead, but as soon as they spoke, he said it was just perfect. Play with all of Ju’s strengths.
‘It was phenomenal because Julius and Thibs had the same mindset. They are workers. None of them ever gave anything, they had to earn everything. They are both the first guys to work every day. They see things exactly the same way. ”
The payout, of course, is this season, the Knicks had a surprising 5-3 start, Randle averaged 23.1 points, 12.0 rebounds and 7.4 assists. The All-Star Game has already been canceled, but Randle’s goal of pushing his game to a star level has so far played perfectly.
That got Knicks fans excited. And brought joy 1300 miles west, where his friend and coach will officially open the Tyler Relph Basketball Lab in downtown Dallas this weekend, where his current clients – including RJ Hamton, Willie Cauley-Stein and Skylar Diggins-Smith – will have a house. And where Julius Randle can always go to practice. Although he probably will not stop just one.