#TradeJuliusRandle? Not so fast

It seems like everyone’s asking the New York Knicks to do the obvious this summer: trade Julius Randle. But is it really that simple? Collin and Shwin discuss.

It’s summer once again for the New York Knicks, which means Leon Rose and company will retake their place under the watchful eye of the media, where they’ll be discussed and dissected as everyone awaits the highly anticipated (and faux) “splash acquisition.”  Some fans are hoping that means the exodus of two-time All-NBA and All-Star honoree Julius Randle, who fell “victim” to old habits in the playoffs. 

The 28-year-old forward, under contract through at least 2024-25, played as much a part in New York’s postseason downfall as Pat Riley’s Miami Heat. Randle’s stats – 18.8 points, 10.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game – may look the part of a valiant effort. But a slightly closer look exposes the rot behind the stink: he shot 41% from the field, 28% on threes and 71% from the charity stripe while committing four turnovers a night in the six-game series. Looking every bit a player who’d mentally checked out for the summer, and (for full transparency) ailing from injuries of the physical kind, Randle no doubt earned the trade chatter that kickstarted as soon as the buzzer sounded to end Game 6. 

But what fans and the front office alike will find is that while trading the veteran forward may be seemingly the most straightforward route to retool the roster ahead of next season, New York pulling off a mutually beneficial trade couldn’t be any more complex. With that in mind, I brought in one Mr. Shwin (Twitter: @Shwinnypooh) to break down New York’s options, the (potential) lack thereof, and possible players or teams that could play a part in any Randle sweepstakes. 

Collin: Shwin, whaddup whaddup whaddup?! Does my (written) filibuster paint the proper picture? Too many clouds, not enough sunshine? Vice versa? Where’s your head at?

Shwin: Impressive filibuster, and I think it does largely present the proper context of the decision regarding Randle that faces the Knicks front office this summer. It's all well and good to believe it's the prudent move to deal Randle if you don't believe he will be a core piece on a contending Knicks team, but there is real downside in trading him.

His playoff struggles are real, and concerns over his personal style of style and how that influences the team are certainly valid. I personally harbor those sentiments, but we know staying competitive and making the playoffs consistently is a baseline this front office is striving for. If Randle is moved, there is the risk that the return would result in a short-term downturn in results. We can pretend that's not the case, but we're talking about a guy who has made two All-NBA and All-Star teams each in the last three seasons. Yes, he's volatile, as we saw in the disastrous 2021-22 campaign, but there is clear proof of concept that the guy can be a decisive regular-season player who combines effectiveness with tremendous durability. 

So, a trade, as I see it based on the perceived motivations of the front office, needs to return value that doesn't hurt their short-term goals much while also providing value that they can use down the line to acquire the type of top-end superstar they're ultimately after. That's a tough needle to thread. Do you even see that being possible, or do you believe they'd be willing to listen to offers more focused on draft compensation and roll the dice they can coax more out of other pieces on the roster in Randle's absence that wouldn't result in too much of a drop-off?

Collin: Let’s circle back on any potential return, because I do want to talk about some teams I think could take interest and what they would have to offer. Keeping the conversation in-house for now, I don’t think you can properly asses the front office’s eagerness/willingness to approach the landscape without talking about the roster and Randle’s looming replacement: Obi Toppin. 

Things could very well change, and I know a large portion of the fanbase is hoping they do, but as it stands today, if the Knicks trade their starting power forward, then the former eighth overall pick is next man up. Much like Game of Thrones, or Succession – my newly discovered vice, holy shit is this show insane – Randle’s fate and that of the realm is directly tied to whomever’s next in line to succeed him. And after Toppin reversed course back into his shell this postseason, I can’t imagine the confidence in his ceiling is sky high among the New York braintrust. How much a part do you think he plays into a potential deal? Or do you think he’s regressed into the tier of non-factors?

Shwin: Obi went back into his shell when his minutes were again constrained – irrespective of his play? Wow, color me shocked. Sorry, but I reject that framing considering how foolish his usage over three seasons under Tom Thibodeau’s dead-end management of him has been.

Toppin has never been afforded an opportunity for extended minutes in any situation where Randle is healthy, regardless of his play. He has been forced to try to reinvent the core of his entire game as a standstill, spot-up, stretch-four specialist with absolutely no attempt to play to the foundation of his game that made him the National Player of the Year at Dayton. If he goes into a shell or lacks confidence, it has a lot more to do with the man on the sidelines who has very obviously never cared even one iota about trying to get him going.

To answer the actual question, I suspect Tooppin is gone unless they actually decide to pull the trigger on a Randle deal. From a pure asset management standpoint, he’s entering the final year of his rookie deal, and you have to imagine he has zero desire to spend a contract year feeding on the scraps of the 12-14 minutes a night Julius sits. From the Knicks’ perspective, you have to imagine they’d like to move him for a late first-round pick to give themselves a cheap contributor locked in on a rookie scale deal for the next four years if they can.

Even if they move Julius, though, you have to think it would be difficult for the front office to entrust Obi with stepping in as a starting power forward based on a relatively small sample of high-minutes games we’ve seen from him in a highly competitive East. There’s a world where betting on Obi pans out, but there is serious downside risk in replacing regular season All-NBA Julius with Toppin when the organization seems to be operating in a way that suggests their primary interest is in continuing to try to make up the gap to the top of the conference without taking a step back in the interim. What say you?

Collin: Color me shocked an NBA front office and/or coaching staff didn’t invest significant resource into following the University of Dayton playbook. I kid, I kid – for sake of not getting eviscerated any further in this conversation – but agree that Toppin’s days are numbered, Randle’s future notwithstanding. Which brings us back to a potential package, the teams that might be interested, and how high the New York front office might swing. 

A reminder: Randle, in his eighth season, averaged 25.1 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 4.1 assists in a year where he appeared in 77 of 82 games. 

I think irregardless of any Toppin return, the Knicks will target a combination of draft picks and/or young talent, potentially resetting the clock with a young staple player at that position. One team that’s been discussed, whether by virtue of actual reporting or simply the lust of Knicks fans everywhere, is the Portland Trail Blazers. They have a 32-year-old franchise point guard in Damian Lillard coming off of his seventh All-NBA season, and more importantly the third overall pick in the upcoming draft. 

All that said, our fleecing of Joe Cronin in the Cam Reddish deal, amongst other reasons, has me cautiously pessimistic. What do you think? Any shot at sending Randle to the Pacific Northwest? I’ve got a strange feeling I already know your answer. 

Shwin: I personally do not see Randle to Portland as a realistic scenario, certainly not in return for a package including the third overall pick in the draft. The Blazers also are difficult to deal with, because the only salaries they have on their books aside from Lillard are Anfernee Simons – who they reportedly want to trade with their pick for a star wing – and Jusuf Nurkic’s albatross contract.

In fact, the difficulty with any Randle trade scenario is it seems easier to find reasons why any team you choose would not do it versus the other way around. To say it another way, Julius is almost definitely valued more by the Knicks than he is around the league.

So where does that leave New York’s front office? Well, if they have decided that the most prudent course of action is to trade Julius, that still does not require them to do so by a specific point in time. Based on how Leon and co. have handled their business since arriving on the scene, I would guess that they are comfortable waiting for the market to shake out over the coming months and wait for a deal they like, rather than aggressively looking to move on.

At the end of the day, they need to maximize Randle’s value in any potential trade, and that can only be done without acting desperate. To their credit, they demonstrated last summer when Randle’s value was at its lowest that they would not make a negative value deal, and you have to think after his spectacular bounceback, even in spite of a stinker in the playoffs, they’d set the bar much higher.

So, to throw it back to you: do you even see a Rande trade happening this summer that ties together the organization’s short and long-term goals? 

Collin: I think the response to your question is two-fold. In his four years with the club, I’ve rarely been more confident that a Randle trade is amongst the options being discussed. Perhaps you can speak more to that, but I’ve never gotten the feeling that they were ever seriously spending time on the concept in year’s past. On the other hand, what kind of team would want to acquire Julius? Likely a middle of the pack playoff hopeful that’s bought into him in a different role than he’s ever played for the Knicks, or a less involved evolution of his backseat, co-captain role to Jalen Brunson this season. Here are 13 teams – excluding Portland – where I think Randle would be a clear-cut upgrade over one of their starting forwards: Atlanta, Brooklyn, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Indiana, Memphis, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Antonio,] and Washington. This excludes any teams where fit might be too conflicting, like a Draymond Green in Golden State or a Kevin Love in Miami. 

If you asked me to narrow the list to teams I thought were realistic trade partners, I’d go with Brooklyn, Charlotte, Indiana, Memphis, Minnesota and Washington. Do any of these teams stand out to you as legitimate possibilities? What could you see New York getting in return?

Shwin: Of those teams listed, only Charlotte and Washington stand out as possibilities. Maybe you can get Gordon Hayward’s expiring and draft capital from Charlotte, or a sign-and-trade for Kristaps Porziņģis from the Wizards, but both seem like long shots.

I actually believe San Antonio, a team you listed in your original group, is maybe the best bet. Would a trade centered around, say, Julius for Keldon Johnson, the unprotected picks in 2025 and 2027 from Atlanta, as well as the pick swap with the Hawks in 2026 appeal to the Knicks? It would certainly be a risk, and mean the front office was betting on more flexible positional groupings which veer away from the identity they carved out for themselves this season. It would also, however, return a young player on descending contract who has shown intriguing talent and net the type of draft capital which could come in handy in an eventual star trade.

Now, would the Spurs do it? Probably not, but I think it’s safe to assume they are not going to be interested in tanking moving forward; landing an All-NBA power forward of Julius’ ilk would be a potent combination alongside Victor Wembenyama. Furthermore, we’ve seen in the past San Antonio’s willingness to bet on good but flawed players in hopes of remaining competitive, like when they landed Demar DeRozan in the Kawhi Leonard trade.

Any specific trade we concoct is unlikely to occur, but if there’s a construct I like, it’s something along those lines more than anything else.

Collin: Yes. For the dedicated readers out there, and likely a few watchful haters, a disclaimer: we aren’t reporting on anything here, simply basing possibilities on educated guesses. 

I like the idea of San Antonio, Shwin, but wonder if they wouldn’t rather hang onto Johnson for a year. Wembanyama (presumably the first overall pick) could play alongside a lead guy who knows the Spurs culture/system, as opposed to having Randle and the rookie walk in blind together. Just a thought. And as you noted, Johnson’s contract is among the league’s most team-friendly, descending and guaranteed through the 2026-2027 season. If there’s a reason for them to rush to ship him off, I don’t see it just yet. 

Staying out West, remember last summer, when the Minnesota Timberwolves, feeling pressured to make a win-now move, drunk dialed the Utah Jazz and said “Rudy Gobert, whatever it takes,” agreeing to a deal that will inevitably set them back years? What if, on a smaller scale, Leon Rose took advantage of another team in flux, i.e. the Memphis Grizzlies? Ja Morant is doing his best impression of 1997 Dennis Rodman, and Dillon Brooks – who’s started 318 of 345 games since 2017 – isn’t coming back, under any circumstances. What would you say to something along the lines of Brandon Clarke, Luke Kennard, the Grizzlies 2023 first-round pick – the 25th selection – plus their 2025 first-rounder, top-10 protected? 

The 25th pick has proven the bread and butter of Rose’s front office, and while Clarke is likely to miss a good chunk of next season, he’s an intriguing enough talent locked in through 2026-2027 at $12.5 million per. Kennard, for however much he’d play, would add some much-needed spacing as a career 44% sniper. Sure, it would take Memphis committing to the idea of Jaren Jackson Jr. at center full-time, but I think this works for both sides. If anything, I’m selling low on Randle, I’ll admit. But if less is more, this does a lot right now for New York. 

Shwin: I would want the 2025 pick unprotected and a 2027 only top-4 protected pick as well. Kennard is a nice shooter, but he’s neither some burgeoning young talent nor an established high-level player. Clarke is somebody I like quite a bit, but as you mentioned is likely to miss a solid portion of next season, if not the whole thing, and as a player whose entire game is predicated on athleticism is no certain thing to recapture form. You’re taking on risk and giving up the best player in the deal, even if Randle has serious question marks around him in the playoffs. The asset return just needs to be greater.