5 Takeaways from the Knicks 2020-2021 Season

Julius Randle the First Time All-Star

I know.

I KNOW.

He looked terrible in the playoff series. But that is for a later discussion. Let’s give the man who had the cojonas to sign with this team as a star player the props he deserves before we go bashing him over the next couple months. Julius Randle almost single handedly revitalized the Knicks; he became an All Star, he took them to the playoffs, won most improved player in the NBA, and has for better or worse became the current face of the franchise.

Randle averaged career highs across the board with 24.1 ppg, 10.2rpg, and 6.0apg. He also led the league in minutes played (2667) and minutes per game (37.6), ranked second in defensive win shares (4.3), fourth in defensive rebounds (639), seventh in total points (1712), ninth in free throws attempted (429), and ranked 10th in field goals made (602), free throws made (348), defensive rating (107.2), and total rebounds (723) per Basketball-Reference and hoopshype.com. He also only missed one game the whole season which is a very valuable commodity, it doesn’t matter how good you are if you aren’t healthy enough to play.

The biggest revelation to his game was his jump in shooting (not in the playoffs apparently though). After averaging 29% from 3 last year, he jumped that number up to 41% this year which is the 3rd highest percentage wise all time. I think if he shot even close to as well as he did this season during the playoffs we would have a much different perception than his recent 5 game sample size.

Regardless of how you feel about him, the Knicks have an All Star on the team, and that hasn’t been a factual sentence since the Carmelo Anthony days. While he clearly isn’t a number 1 option on a contender, he certainly could be a pretty good number 2, and an amazing number 3 option on a true contender.

Give him props people, he really deserves it.