Julius Randle Agrees To Extension, Wanted To Give Knicks Flexibility

August 5, 2021

The Knicks and power forward Julius Randle both experienced a resurgance last season, and Randle has been rewarded for it.

That’s because Randle ad the Knicks have tacked on another four years to his existing contract, with an extension worth $117 million, agents Aaron Mintz and Steven Heumann told Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

“While Wojnarowski reports that the four-year extension will be worth $117MM, that figure includes some incentives — the extension should have a base value of about $106.4MM and could max out at just over $122MM if Randle earns all of his bonuses in every season of the deal,” noted Luke Adams of Hoops Rumors. “It’s the most the Knicks could have offered Randle this season.”

New York is coming off a run to the playoffs under first-year coach Tom Thibodeau, and Randle put together his best season as a pro.

Along with serving as a leader in the locker room, he averaged career-highs in points (24.1), rebounds (10.2), assists (6.0) and 3-point perecentage (.411).

Randle, 26, also missed just one game in helping the Knicks finish with the No. 4 seed in the Easter Conference and makig the playoffs for the first time since 2012.

Part of the reason for agreeing to the extension now, reported Ian Begley of SNY.tv, is because Randle was determined to “commit his prime to the team,” as well as give the Knicks some flexibility moving forward.

Or as Marc Berman of the New York Post added, Randle wanted to make sure to “not muddy things” when it comes to the Knicks’ salary-cap situation next summer.

“More than any team I’ve ever been on, with this year’s Knicks, it feels like we have a collective purpose,” Randle wrote in The Players’ Tribune earlier this year. “And I think that’s also one of the things that Thibs (Tom Thibodeau) has been great at bringing to the table.

“This idea of how we can have our goals as individuals, and then our goals as a team and if we have the right mindset, there’s no reason those goals can’t feed into each other. It just feels like something good is happening.”