Inside The Knicks' Fallout This Season, and What's Next For Julius Randle and Franchise
Imagine being a tourist in New York City and seeing people in New York Knicks uniforms and shirts run out of Madison Square Garden yelling “Bing Bong, Bing Bong” after their team won a game.
From their perspective, being a Knicks fan must be great, right?
Well, Knicks fans feel a little differently about this, as the celebrations in the streets of New York City after an early-season victory seem like forever ago.
“Bing Bong” has suddenly turned into “Ping Pong” for the New York Knicks, as this franchise will once again be picking in the lottery of the 2022 NBA Draft after a rough season.
The Knicks finished the 2021-22 season with a 37-45 record, missing the playoffs entirely and once again sending themselves back to the drawing boards, looking for answers on how to become a true threat in this league.
The 2020-21 season seemed like a turning point for an organization that had been near the bottom of the league standings for quite some time, yet injuries and egos seemed to halt the motion of this Knicks franchise rising up in the Eastern Conference.
While their identity on the defensive-side of things was still apparent this season, New York struggled to find consistent play on offense.
The emergence of R.J. Barrett and other young talents is definitely a "plus" that this organization can take away from the 2021-22 season, but compared to last season, there is a lot to be concerned about with this franchise.
Going from the No. 4 seed a season ago to missing the playoffs and Play-In Tournament altogether this season has been extremely disappointing for the Knicks, and now, team president Leon Rose and general manager Scott Perry have a lot to discuss in regards to their head coach, the core of their roster and potential offseason moves to be made.
Tom Thibodeau's Immediate Future With New York
The first order of business for the New York Knicks will be figuring out their plan at the head coaching spot moving forward, but it does not appear that they will be moving on from two-time NBA Coach of the Year Tom Thibodeau anytime soon.
Thibodeau won Coach of the Year honors with the Chicago Bulls (2010-11) and most recently with the Knicks during the 2020-21 season, and with him having a really strong relationship with members of the team’s front office, including Leon Rose, it would be shocking at this point to not see Tom Thibodeau back on the Knicks’ sideline next year.
Knicks executives believe in Thibodeau, to an extent, and they are not going to be giving up on him after just two seasons in New York, especially after Rose wanted to bring him to the Knicks when he initially joined the team's front office in 2020.
Recently concluding his 10th year as a head coach in the NBA, Thibodeau is very respected around the league by other front-offices and coaching staffs.
However, Thibodeau has had quick fallouts with previous teams, as his unwillingness to change his beliefs and loyalty to certain players was a key reason for his departure from Chicago in 2015.
With the Minnesota Timberwolves, he lasted just three seasons not because of his relationship with the players, but because of tension growing between the coach and management due to the two sides wanting to take the team in different directions.
For his career, the Knicks' coach has gone 430-322 (57.2%) as a head coach in the NBA, taking his team to the playoffs seven different times.
Offseason Roster Reconstruction Imminent?
As far as their roster, the drop in production Julius Randle had this season certainly raises some “yellow flags” for New York, especially since they just signed him to a four-year, $112 million extension before the start of the 2021-22 season that keeps him under contract through the 2025. Randle also has a player option for the 2025-26 season on this deal.
The Knicks originally signed the former Kentucky Wildcat in 2019 to a three-year, $63 million deal after he had spent one season with the New Orleans Pelicans. Randle was originally drafted seventh overall in 2014 by the Los Angeles Lakers.
Leon Rose recently spoke at the conclusion of the regular season about his team’s season and claimed that both the organization would like to keep Randle and that the All-Star forward would like to remain in New York, but there seems to be a very weird feeling around this topic right now, especially given how well second-year forward Obi Toppin played to close out the year.
In 10 games without Julius Randle this season, Toppin recorded the only 10 starts of his career and looked nearly flawless on the floor, averaging 20.3 points, 7.0 rebounds and shooting 43.6% from three-point range in those games.
After scoring a career-high 35 points in the Knicks’ second-to-last game this year against the Washington Wizards, Toppin set another career-high in scoring with 42 points in the Knicks' final game of the season against the Toronto Raptors in Madison Square Garden.
Chants of “Obi! Obi! Obi!” rained down from the very top row of The Garden, as the eighth overall pick of the Knicks back in 2020 gave fans something to cheer about late in the year.
Maybe the Knicks and Thibodeau can figure out ways to incorporate both Toppin and Randle into the starting rotation next season, but there have been trade rumors also swirling around Randle, starting around the trade deadline a few months ago.
Toppin played really well for the Knicks when given time on the floor, yet he was really only able to showcase what he could do near the end of the season with Randle injured. All season long, his minutes were very inconsistent.
There is a belief around the league that the Knicks could entertain the idea of moving their All-Star power-forward in Julius Randle now before his value declines any further, especially with Obi Toppin's emergence.
“Obi Toppin proved that he deserves to be in the starting rotation for New York,” one NBA scout told SI Fastbreak. “So where does that leave Julius Randle in all of this? With the size of his contract, especially after they just extended him and all of the drama that surrounded him this season, don’t be shocked if they look to trade him.
“R.J. Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Obi Toppin. Those are three energetic and young players that have proven to be high-level talents for this team in a short period of time. Building with them and adding a superstar to this team in favor of Randle puts the Knicks back on the map as a top-tier team in not just the Eastern Conference, but the NBA.”
Toppin's play at the end of the season certainly shines more light on the idea of trading Randle, but that might now be easy to do, considering his contract and present market value.
Julius Randle's Future & The Knicks' Trade Market
If they were to look at the possibility of trading him, there would be a few teams to show immediate interest in Randle, and one league executive told SI Fastbreak that the Knicks would be “lucky” to get a talent equal to Tobias Harris of the Philadelphia 76ers in a deal, a player who many would describe as one tier down from being an All-Star talent in this league.
In terms of his contract, Randle’s deal with the Knicks is similar to the contracts of John Collins (Atlanta Hawks), Malcolm Brogdon (Indiana Pacers) and Harrison Barnes (Sacramento Kings) for next season.
For years now, stability and consistency have been two key problems the Knicks have dealt with as an organization.
Once there were talks of moving on from Carmelo Anthony, the team began to fracture and the same thing occurred with Kristaps Porzingis a few years back when they traded the All-Star big man to the Dallas Mavericks.
All-Star talents in this league do not come around every day, which is one of the reasons why the Knicks could counter all of the talk about trading Randle. The last thing they can afford to do is trade one of their best talents and immediately struggle, which is why this Randle situation runs very deep within the organization, a problem that may not be addressed immediately in the offseason.
Randle is not the only player on the Knicks’ roster being brought up in trade rumors entering the offseason.
Derrick Rose ($14.5 million), Alec Burks ($10 million), Nerlens Noel ($9.2 million), Kemba Walker ($9.1 million) and even Evan Fournier ($18 million) are all said to be “available” for the right price, and it truly does feel like the Knicks are willing to discuss trades involving anyone on their roster other than Barrett, Toppin and Quickley.
Burks and Rose are expected to draw some trade interest from various playoff-contending teams around the league, as they both have fairly reasonable contracts for the 2022-23 season.
As for Kemba Walker, his situation is a little more unclear. There are teams interested in the former All-Star point guard, sources said, but many teams are not wanting the $9.1 million attached to Walker’s current contract for the 2022-23 season.
Some teams are examining whether Walker will be bought out by the Knicks in the offseason and two teams that do have interest in the veteran are the Los Angeles Clippers and Charlotte Hornets.
Expected to be busy in the trade market, New York will also have some key decisions to make in terms of free agency.
Possibilities In Free Agency
The Knicks enter the offseason with a total cap of about $120 million and they only have their non-taxpayer mid-level exception equating to about $10 million to utilize in free agency, but through trades, this front office could easily create enough space for a max-contract type of talent.
As stated earlier, Derrick Rose, Alec Burks and Nerlens Noel all have moveable contracts that could free up enough cap space for this front-office to be aggressive in free agency.
Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine is an All-Star free agent that the Knicks are expected to show interest in and another interesting name that has been brought up in connection to the Knicks is Cleveland Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton, who enters the offseason as a restricted free agent and is coming off a torn meniscus in his left knee.
Expected to re-sign with the Bulls, LaVine will most likely be off the market within the first few hours of free agency, but Sexton’s situation is very unclear, as the Cavaliers could look to move on from the young guard because of their own salary restraints.
In four seasons with the Cavaliers, Sexton has averaged 20.0 points, 3.3 assists and has shot 45.8% from the floor, making him the offensive weapon the Knicks really need in their backcourt next to Quickley and Barrett.
The uncertainty surrounding the Knicks roster entering the offseason likely will not be healed in free agency this offseason simply due to the fact that there is not a ton of high-level talent available.
The top potential free agents in Kyrie Irving (Brooklyn Nets), James Harden (Philadelphia 76ers), Bradley Beal (Washington Wizards) and Russell Westbrook (Los Angeles Lakers) are not expected to hit the open market, and outside of LaVine, the next best names available will be Collin Sexton (Cleveland Cavaliers), Miles Bridges (Charlotte Hornets) and Deandre Ayton (Phoenix Suns), all of which will be restricted free agents.
Preserving their cap space and setting themselves up to make real runs at big names in 2023 free agency could be something the Knicks' front office discusses at length, especially since All-Star talents like Milwaukee Bucks' Khris Middleton, Golden State Warriors' Andrew Wiggins, Toronto Raptors' Fred VanVleet and Minnesota Timberwolves' D’Angelo Russell could become available for New York to pursue.
“They truly need an identity,” said one league source. “Who is the guy for this team? Is it Randle? Is it Barrett? Is it someone they do not have yet? The Knicks need to really sit down and figure out who they want 'their guy' to be moving forward because all this flip-flopping within the organization year-by-year sends the wrong message to top-tier guys around the league who do actually have real interest in going to New York and being the face of the franchise.”
The future of the Knicks as a successful franchise in the NBA is very much dependent on the moves they make this offseason. The last two seasons have been complete opposites of one another and in order to avoid getting lost in the pack of the Eastern Conference, the Knicks will need to be aggressive in their pursuit to fix their problems at hand.
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