He is not an alpha on a contender. He’s similar to Melo in that way. That’s why when 40yo Jason Kidd had fumes left in the tank, Melo was at his best as a Knick.

Since he’s been on the Knicks, Randle has mostly been miscast as the team’s alpha out of necessity, and was pretty decent at it in 3 of 4 years, given the status of the team’s roster. Then last year he became a complementary star to alpha Brunson, and was playing some of the best ball of his career before he got submarined and blew out his shoulder.

I think he could be just as excellent as a complementary star to alpha (insert name here) if the Knicks decide that he’s too rich for their blood.

Can’t believe Iga lost at Roland Garros.

Very happy for Simone. I had no idea about her personal story, her childhood etc. Just a fantastic capstone.

Right, because no coach could ever figure that out.

“Randle is a terrible fit next to Embiid. They play in the same spots and would just get in each other’s way.”

This is ludicrous.

“Gordon is a lynch pin of their defense. And taking the ball out of Jokic’s and Murray’s hands doesn’t make sense.”

All of your points are based on the deeply flawed assumption that Randle can only play one role effectively. A three forward rotation or Randle-Gordon-Porter Jr. would be awesomely flexible.

“This is as insane as E complaining about OG and Mikal’s overlapping skill set. Randle hurts their spacing and their defense while taking the ball out of Gianni’s hands.”

This is pretty funny because it is actually you who is making an E-like (i.e. insane) argument about overlapping skillsets and spacing.

“Dude…the whole point of Katz’s article is the math behind giving Randle something close to a max extension *and* saying below the second apron is very tricky! I don’t think anyone disagrees with the proposition that we should extend Randle so long as it doesn’t financially impair us at all.”

Aren’t you one of the folks that was convinced that we’d be over the second apron by now? Katz actually discusses a possibility that even on a max extension, we’d be under the second apron until 2026-27…and that’s if we retained everyone else in our rotation under contract. What I don’t understand is why Randle would opt in without an extension. Why take that risk?

I don’t even know what you think you’re arguing against. I’ve said a million times I think Randle is good, has a clear role on this team, and there should be no particular impetus whatsoever to trade him.

This is what I’m arguing against:

I just don’t know who’s going to pay him $32.4M for that season, not to mention the seasons following. Houston seems like the strongest possibility and even that feels like a stretch unless they make significant moves between now and then. For the reasons we’ve discussed ad nauseam, he’s a good-but-niche player who I don’t think will get paid like a typical multi-time all-NBA player still presumably in his prime.

I think this is a terribly flawed assumption. Care to venture a guess as to what he will be getting paid in 2026-27? I’ll go with $40M +/- $2M. We can bookmark it and have fun coming back to it in a couple of years.

“It’s also the case that there are clear barriers to him getting a max contract from another team. Some of those are endemic to Randle, others have more to do with the new CBA and the league landscape writ large. If you disagree, name the team!”

Well you already named one. I have a feeling that there will be other teams with ample cap space (or the ability to easily generate it) that would be happy to bring an all-NBA player aboard for well more than his player option. Do we really need to go through the exercise of which teams can possibly have enough cap space to bring him on board, or would be willing to do a sign-and-trade with assets attached to swap him out at his extension number?

The NBA is pretty unpredictable. There are several teams that have done stuff that no one saw coming a year prior, including the Knicks. If he gets pissed and declines his option, I’m confident that he will be offered a contract something like the one Brunson took, if not for more.

consider 3 of the other 4 starters are out of the league 3 years later (Noel, Bullock and Payton)

But Bullock isn’t necessarily out of the league yet, unless I missed something

And 3 years can be a very long time in basketball

Allen is an excellent roll man but that’s not the ideal fit for us.

He is, but he averaged fewer than 3 pnr FGAs a game.

Would you prefer using 18/11/4, 33% 3FG, 29% FG?

Yeah…. I actually would, when you consider 3 of the other 4 starters are out of the league 3 years later (Noel, Bullock and Payton) and he led that crew to a #4 seed and a ten game over .500 regular season.