Dallas Basketball

Knicks All-Star Julius Randle Speaks on Mavs' Luka Doncic: 'He's My Favorite Player!'

During the NBA All-Star Weekend media availability on Saturday, New York Knicks star Julius Randle praised Dallas Mavericks MVP candidate Luka Doncic and even went as far as calling him his "favorite player."

Dalton Trigg

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One cool thing about NBA All-Star Weekend is that it offers a unique chance to hear a handful of stars talk about their admiration for one another.

On Saturday, New York Knicks two-time All-Star Julius Randle praised Dallas Mavericks MVP candidate Luka Doncic and even went as far as calling him his "favorite player" when asked who he'd select with the first pick in the All-Star draft.

"Oh, [an All-Star] captain? Who would be my first pick? ... I might pick Luka," Randle said. "He's my favorite player. To watch just how he plays, man. His skill, you can't speed him up. He's a great player."

Randle, who is a Dallas native, normally gives his hometown team the business when he plays against them, but this season, his Knicks went 0-2 against the Mavs. That two-game season series included the game where Doncic went off for a career-high 60 points to go along with 21 rebounds and 10 assists in a miraculous 126-121 overtime win for Dallas.

Since then, the Mavs have become more of a threat to the rest of the league as they traded for Kyrie Irving nearly two weeks ago. Randle got straight to the point when asked how he felt about the newly-formed dynamic duo in Dallas.

"I think it'll work out great, me personally," Randle said.

Randle's Knicks teammate, Jalen Brunson, who left the Mavs in free agency last summer, was snubbed from being a first-time All-Star this season despite having a career year in New York. One has to wonder if Randle would've picked Brunson instead of Doncic with his hypothetical All-Star first pick if he was in Salt Lake City.

As a certain controversial rapper/producer famously said at the 2005 Grammys, "I guess we'll never know."

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Dalton Trigg
DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.

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