WaltFrazier wrote:Have to rethink the what ifs of doing the Kat trade all over again.
Add Mikal, keep Randle and Donte, where would we be now?
Finch is a very good offensive coach so that's helping Randle, plus playing with Ant
Meh...Randle had 5 years here to show us what he had...went to Minnesota and started hitting threes and playing defense. Randle really was the guy before Brunson...the cheap contract extension, the signing, returning us to the playoffs, even leading a tough defensive team during COVID...but his poor decisionmaking outweighed the good in the end. He was given many chances here - the opportunity to have his jersey in the rafters, the opportunity to lead and make this his team - and he gave it up. We talk about what we lost, but he lost a shyt-ton because he didn't treasure his opportunity.
Yea, I can't blame the Front Office for finally saying,
enough. I don't know anyone else
in New York professional sports who got the chances he did and I think he's probably set up a record for eat crow and vomit crow threads. Yes, Randle was done in by injuries in the end, but that's why he shouldn't have taken things for granted and why he should have played hard from the get-go. Once he lost his final chance to redeem himself because of injuries, we were left with his poor body of work as evidence and guys citing a single month, when it should have been years of evidence. We get pissed off at the Knicks for not playing hard in Game 6. That's basically Randle for the past few years with us. Not sure if he got too comfortable here or maybe that his contract situation is spurring him to be different, but we've seen this before. This was the Randle we had during 2021-2022, the Randle I felt we should have always had. All he had to do was play hard tbh...that's on him. He's playing well in Minnesota? He's playing hard in Minnesota? Good on him. That's why we kept asking him to try hard, cause we knew he could do it.
I think the other question is how our center rotation would have resolved itself too. No KAT in the regular season, no Mitch. I might still regret KAT though...I think in the end, I'd rather dump all those dudes for Giannis.