Julius Randle isn't bothering to hide his frustrations with the Knicks season thus far, and those frustrations are mounting.
Last year's Most Improved Player hit another low on Thursday night, finishing with just four points on 1-of-9 shooting, hearing a loud chorus of boos from the home crowd, and received a technical foul at the halftime buzzer while snapping at teammate Evan Fournier, who was trying to calm Julius down on his way into the locker room.
It isn't hard to see Randle's anger with how the season is going, as he is now shooting 34.6 percent from the floor while averaging 14.1 points per game over his last seven, but head coach Tom Thibodeau continues to focus on the team's frustrations and struggles as a whole, not just the notable regression of its leader.
"It's easy to say that, but it's really our entire team," Thibodeau said. "When things aren't going our way, Julius is gonna take a lot of blame. He gets a lot of the credit, but that comes with the turf. It's a team game."
Randle was not made available to the media after the game, the seventh straight game that he has not spoken with reporters (he spoke to a group of reporters after a practice during that span). Randle, the face of last year's memorable run to the playoffs, is typically a frequent presence for the media in postgame interviews, but in eight of the last nine games, that hasn't been the case.
Randle was a team-worst -26 in Thursday's loss to the lowly Pelicans, on a night when New York needed to take care of business to get back on track and halt its slide back down the Eastern Conference standings. But New York was only ever going to get back to last year's heights if Randle was able to replicate his All-Star 2020-21 campaign, but over midway through the season, Randle looks nothing like that player, and the frustration is evident, even if he isn't speaking after games.
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