Barring something unexpected, Julius Randle is going to win the NBA’s Most Improved Player award. As the main figure of the playoff-bound New York Knicks, Randle has been an All-NBA caliber player this year, putting up the best numbers of his career almost across the board. Randle is averaging career high’s in points, rebounds, assists and three-point percentage all while on the second-highest usage rate of his career and playing almost 40 minutes a night. His shot making ability from most spots on the floor, coupled with the way he blends strength and savvy, has made him one of the league’s hardest players to guard.
This, and it leading the Knicks back to the playoffs, puts him at the head of a loaded Most Improved Player candidate list. Others — namely Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr., Pistons forward Jerami Grant, maybe even Randle’s teammate R.J. Barrett, among others — are worth considering. But Randle is clearly at the head of the class.
This didn’t come out of nowhere. Randle is talented, a one-time lottery pick who was a five-star recruit and played at Kentucky. He averaged over 20 points for the Pelicans two years ago. But he’s never been what he is now, an All-Star caliber player who the Knicks should want to build with and around moving forward — and it sounds like Randle wants that, too. When Randle came to Knicks in 2019, it was on a three-year deal that had a non-guarantee in its last year. That’s not a contract given out to someone viewed as a cornerstone.
So what changed? From the outside, it seems that Randle’s situation in New York changed in a way that empowered him. The 2019-20 Knicks, Randle’s first year with the team, were bad. David Fizdale was fired 22 games into the season. Mike Miller took over as interim head coach and New York finished 12th in the Eastern Conference. They did not make it to the Orlando Bubble. They were again a lottery team and picked up Obi Toppin at No. 8 overall. Randle, one might have guessed, was going to be a placeholder for Toppin at forward and perhaps a trade piece at the deadline.
Now, it’s hard to imagine the Knicks without Randle — and worth pondering what they’d look like had they’d taken Tyrese Haliburton or Saddiq Bey instead of Toppin. The Knicks didn’t make too many major roster changes in the offseason, with the biggest shakeup coming in the form of hiring Tom Thibodeau to coach the team. Through one season, it has become abundantly clear that for Randle and many of his teammates, Thibodeau is the right fit. Thibodeau coaches hard, but it seems like he and Randle are a match.
“Honestly, man, he’s not as much of a harda– as people think he is,” Randle said when he was on the J.J. Redick podcast. “The dude is super cool, like you can talk to him. He’s gonna kill me if he sees this, but he really is soft. You can talk to him. Thibs is dope. Honestly, he’s a players’ coach. This is the most fun that I’ve had as far as playing in the league, for sure.”
There’s also the Kenny Payne factor. Payne is an assistant coach for the Knicks who worked with Randle and a slew of other NBA stars at Kentucky before joining the Knicks before this season. By all accounts, Randle and Payne are close, and the assistant has a big hand in pushing Randle to the best place he can get to. Randle trusts and believes in Payne, which is hugely important even if hard to quantify, which is why, oftentimes, the importance of the coaching staff-player fit gets overlooked when discussing a player’s development and success. There is a plan there to push Randle forward that might not be able to be unlocked with another coach in the same spot. Even if that coach is a very good coach, if they can’t forge the type of relationship and trust that Randle and Payne seemingly have, it won’t see the same results.
It often takes time for that trust to be built, but with Randle and many others on the roster, the Knicks staff has been able to make that connection quickly and they are reaping the benefits. The near team-wide buy-in to the plan and the system is why this team is the 4-seed going into the playoffs, and no one embodies their turnaround as a team more than Randle.
He’s going to be a well-deserved Most Improved Player Award winner for the season he’s had, and Randle’s growth should also serve a reminder that the right situation can be the catalyst for unlocking talent that was always there.