If Julius Randle persists, he’s going to buy a drink in New York City for the rest of his natural life. If he’s old and gray, Randle would still be a toast to the city to take the Knicks’ money if the big names did not want it, to start their return to relevance and to win the team’s first championship. since 1973 to make it feel like a realistic goal.
Oh, and to facilitate the sting of the Kristaps Porzingis trade, if the sting does not disappear altogether.
The Knicks’ trade in Porzingis with the Mavericks in 2019 was not exactly the Mets trade in 1977 with Tom Seaver at the Reds, but it hurt the same. The most important Maverick who came to New York’s side, Dennis Smith Jr., was a disaster, and DeAndre Jordan, the man who was supposed to lure Olympic teammates and friends Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to the garden, eventually joined they joined in Brooklyn.
Out of desperation, the Knicks had to spend a portion of the salary cap that freed up the trade. Randle raises his hand. On Friday night in Dallas, with Porzingis on the opposite front line, Randle had just 44 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, leading his team to the fifth straight win and improving the Knicks’ chances of taking the Mavericks place after the season. avoid. seems to be on the way – the dreaded in-play tournament.
Coming home to Dallas, Randle became the first Knick since Bernard King in 1985 with at least 40 points, 10 boards and five assists in a single game. He was 16-for-29 off the floor, 6-for-11 from the 3-point series, and Porzingis’ points total (23) nearly doubled.
“When he added the three-point shot,” coach Tom Thibodeau said of Randle after his team’s 117-109 victory, “it just opened up all the other things.”
This includes the possibility that Randle, just eight months older than Porzingis, may perform better than the next three or four years. It would be a big order to play above the 7-foot Latvian, and a quick look at Porzingis’ latest performance on the track, as Knick explains why.
That February night in 2018 in the garden, Giannis Antetokounmpo, the NBA’s most athletic player, wore Porzingis ‘jersey as a middle-aged weekend fighter at local Y. Trey Burke was working on the Bucks’ franchise player on the left elbow and KP was freeing himself from the defensive line of defense, and was unable to take advantage of the situation. But when the Bucks jumped Jason Terry into the passing lane, the Unicorn did a very Unicorn-like thing: he stopped on a double like a wide receiver coming out of a break, splitting Terry and Antetokounmpo on a hard dives into the basket, and takes Quinn’s reflection into the air for a high-flying, posterior dunk over the Greek Freak as camera lights flash around them.
But just like the most recent prosperity of Knicks prosperity – Linsanity in 2012, Melo’s 54-win season next year – this one ended way too quickly. In fact, it took about two seconds after the dunk took over Antetokounmpo before a fallen Porzingis grabbed his left knee and started stomping on the floor. The fans could not even get out of their seats until their pleasure ended up in a mess. KP had a torn ACL, and almost a year later he walked into Steve Mills’ office and told team president and general manager Scott Perry that he wanted out, and that if they did not exchange him, he would leave for Europe. .
Randle’s play (along with the two running picks the Dallas Knicks acquired) made the Porzingis trade feel much less apocalyptic than it seemed at the time. Randle went in on Friday night and outscored Porzingis (23.2-20.7) and outscored him (10.6-9.3), although the Mavs star beat the Knicks power forward in the efficiency of players (22.26-19.73).
Porzingis victimized Randle on a poster dunk in Friday’s game, and it did not matter. The Knicks’ best player had a rebound in the third quarter with 1.1 seconds, setting up the giant fourth. With 4:11 ahead and the Knicks leading by six points, Randle made two free kicks. He shifted the lead back to eight a minute later by knocking a runner off the glass. With 1:44 left, he sank a faded turn that looked like the vowel.
“He’s our engine,” Thibodeau said. “He let us go.”
Randle put together this career season through extreme off-season conditioning work and through the confidence that came from it. When he finished in his homecoming, Randle was asked what making All-NBA would mean to him.
“It would be a great achievement,” he said.
Just as good as making New Yorkers forget how much they hated the Kristaps Porzingis trade when it went down.