A tepid free agent market in 2025 will likely force New York Knicks‘ three-time All-Star forward Julius Randle to pick up his player option after this season, Spotrac salary cap expert Keith Smith predicted.
“My guess is that player option right now for the 2025-26 season, I would say a pretty good bet [Randle] picks that up just because it doesn’t look like a great free agent market for the teams that have cap space next summer,” Smith said August 21 on the “NBA Front Office” podcast. “Not that you couldn’t still work out a sign and trade or something like that, but my guess is he’s probably going to pick that up. So if you’re the Knicks, it’s a little bit of a wait-and-see approach, and if you’re Randle, you’re probably OK with that too.”
The teams who are expected to have the most cap room next summer are the Brooklyn Nets ($49.5 million), Houston Rockets ($30.6 million), Washington Wizards ($25.2 million) and San Antonio Spurs ($23.2 million), Smith projected.
Randle is eligible to sign as much as a four-year, $181.5 million extension as early as August 3.
However, the Knicks have yet to extend Randle, which comes as a surprise after they gave OG Anunoby a fresh five-year, $212.5 million deal and re-signed their All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson to his maximum four-year, $156.5 million extension. Although Brunson’s extension is $113 million less than what he could have received next summer if he waited for another season.
SNY’s Ian Begley reported on July 7 that “the extension talks aren’t at the forefront for either the Knicks or Randle.”
From Face of Knicks Rebuilding to ‘Swing Piece’
Once the face of the rebuilding in New York, Randle has been largely overshadowed by Brunson’s rise as an MVP-caliber player over the past two seasons.
Randle had to adjust his game to fit with Brunson, who is now undoubtedly the face of the franchise. The Knicks cemented it by naming Brunson the team captain, which has never been bestowed to Randle even after ascending as an NBA All-Star and All-NBA forward while leading them to break their eight-year playoff drought in 2021.
Smith considers Brunson, Anunoby and Mikal Bridges, who the Knicks traded for four unprotected and one top-four protected picks, as the team’s “real building blocks.”
“Randle becomes kind of the swing piece,” Smith said. “If he comes back and fits in fine with those three guys and then Mitchell Robinson or insert whoever at the center position, you’re probably feeling pretty good about keeping Randle and re-upping with him.
If Randle doesn’t fit in or things feel a little weird then that’s when you’re probably thinking all right, let’s either [make him] a trade piece or let this just kind of play out and we’ll see where it goes in a year or two.”
Julius Randle’s Trade Value
The conundrum for the Knicks is that they are not going to get maximum value for Randle in the trade market, per Fred Katz of The Athletic.
“Here’s what makes discussions about hypothetical Randle trades so difficult: I don’t believe there is a team in the NBA that would value the three-time All-Star more than the Knicks do.
I texted this question to someone who works in a rival team’s front office and received an answer I expected: “Neutral, at best,” the person said,” Katz wrote in his mailbag on August 21.
There is optimism that Randle will be fine as illustrated by the Knicks’ 12-2 stretch in January with him, Anunoby and Brunson all healthy. But adding Bridges into the mix will mean another adjustment.
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Salary Cap Expert Predicts Julius Randle’s Future With Knicks