Losing Julius Randle sucks
There’s a lot more to it, but, TL;DR: it sucks.
The devil’s in the details, the old saw goes, but any self-respecting adversary knows the bit grows stale without some variety. Gotta keep people off-balance. Sometimes the details are a red herring, and the devil’s hiding in plain sight. Take this headline: “Julius Randle to have season-ending shoulder surgery.” Plain as day and subtle as a coronary.
I could give you numbers. The New York Knicks, 29-17 before Randle dislocated the shoulder, are 16-15 since. That’s what happens when 25, 10 and five a night disappears. Knick fans won’t merely miss out on the consistent excellence of their second banana. Randle was putting together possibly his best overall season, shooting a Knick-career-high from the floor while evolving as a scoring threat to optimize his strengths with the team’s. After 37% of his shot attempts last year came 0-10 feet from the hoop, that number shot up to 57% this season. He was doing damage where that damage did the most damage.
The Knicks sported an elite offense in the sliver of time Randle, Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby played together. The defense was chewing up bullets and spitting them back at fools who dared test it. For the first time since the 1970s, the Knicks were a top-tier two-way team. Then Randle drove the lane late in a January game against the Heat.
The obvious pain now comes on offense, where instead of a two-time All-NBA chimera at power forward the Knicks will turn to OG, if his health holds up in his most recent return from his elbow ailment. A healthy, in-rhythm Anunoby is a threat spotting up from deep or cutting to the cup for dunks, but offensively he’s a cog, not a hub. If OG can’t go, next man up is Precious Achiuwa. We love Precious. We love what we brings. We know what he doesn’t.
Beyond the numbers and the obvious, the cost of losing Randle is prohibitive in other ways. While he’ll never earn All-Defense votes, his first four years in New York, Randle led the team in defensive rebounds by a significant margin. Holistic benefits to that reality: bigs can feel more comfortable contesting shots when there’s someone they trust manning the defensive glass, and Randle’s rebounding provided an option the Knicks don’t otherwise possess. Also, nothing wrong with a 6-foot-9 dude who can grab the board, dribble up the floor and either initiate the offense or compromise the defense himself.