The NBA community's collective attention may have been pointed toward the absolutely surreal run that Stephen Curry had been on over the past couple of weeks, in which he averaged over 40 points per game at historic levels of efficiency, before coming back down to earth. But not far behind him has been Julius Randle, the Knicks star whose 2020-21 campaign has been a revelatory performance after a good but not great NBA career beforehand.
Over the past two weeks, the Knicks are 8-0 — the same Knicks that I and everyone else thought would be one of the worst teams in the NBA before the season kicked off — and Randle is averaging a scorching 30.0 points, 9.0 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game. On Wednesday, he put up 40 points on the Hawks, just three games after he dropped a casual 44 on the Mavericks.
It's hard to remember, with him playing like this, how things were during his first campaign in the Big Apple. His statistics don't look bad — 19.5 points, 9.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists — but they're a far cry from what they are now, and the team results are wildly different as well. The Knicks finished 21-45 in 2019-20, never quite able to recover from a 4-20 start that bled into December. Randle, understandably, was feeling pretty down in the dumps at that point in the season, and it was then that he went to a dinner. Fortunately, it would be a dinner that sparked change for the better.
He joined ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on his podcast to discuss that night and how everything went up from there.
"It was one night, I was really upset, and I'm at the restaurant with my agent, Aaron (Mintz). He actually called me, he was like man, I'm coming down there to see you," Randle said.
It was a good-sized gathering — Randle, Mintz, Elfrid Payton (who Mintz also represents), Kenny Payne, Leon Rose and William Wesley — enjoying a meal at Scalinatella in New York City.
"They see I'm down, they're trying to pick me up, trying to talk to me," Randle recalled. "Like, 'What is it that you see, what is it that you're feeling, what do you see on the court, what's going on?' So I'm telling them all the things... I'm telling them everything I don't like, you know what I mean, and what's really bothering me.
"And, you know, Wes really took it to heart, and fast forward six, seven, eight months... it's kinda like they saved me, honestly, in a sense, because Leon took the job, and not too far along, Wes took the job with him. And Wes called me, he's like, 'yo, what do you need? What do you need to be an All-Star? What do you need to lead this team?'
"One of the things I told him was I really need coaching. I need a coach to hold me accountable, I need a coach to push me. So Thibs comes in the picture, and then they bring KP (Kenny Payne) along who was at the dinner as well. Like I said, it really just comes full circle, just because a year ago at the start of the season it was tough, and now... all this stuff kind of, for me, came together as far as coaching, opportunity, the team and what everybody else is doing, how we believe in each other, how Thibs has everybody buying in. So it's great, man."
What did Randle mean by bringing in a coach that would hold him accountable, of all the things that he needed to reach his All-Star potential? What was that all-important trait — accountability — that was missing, as opposed to pursuing some sort of perennial superstar alongside him or looking into a trade so that he could get a new change of scenery?
"For me, it's about winning," Randle said, explaining that players in this league get a lot of freedom, which isn't always a good thing. "One of the things that I did last summer when the season was over, I looked at all my tape... and a lot of things you realize. Like, you're getting away with certain things you shouldn't be getting away with, or you're maybe not getting coached the way that you should be as far as pushing me, you know what I mean?
"And that's what I told Leon and that's what I told Wes. I want a coach who's really going to hold us all accountable for every night that we step out there on the court, that winning is the most important thing, and that's really what this team is about."
It's hard to argue against the fact that Thibs' ability to hold players accountable has led to finding ways to win, as the Knicks currently sit in fourth place, boast the league's third highest defensive rating, hold opponents to the lowest PPG (104.7) in all of basketball and have a legitimate All-Star — their first since Kristaps Porzingis in 2017-18 — leading the charge in Randle.
And to think that it all started at Scalinatella.
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