Julius Randle has agreed to a three-year, $100 million contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, who reported Sunday that the deal includes a player option for the 2027-28 season.
Randle, who held a $30.9 million player option for the 2025-26 season, was one the top available forwards on the free agent market. A three-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection during his time with the Knicks, Randle was traded on the eve of the 2024-25 campaign in the blockbuster deal that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to New York, and turned in a strong year for the Timberwolves, averaging 18.7 points on 48.5% shooting, 7.1 rebounds and 4.7 assists in 32.3 minutes per game.
The early read on that trade — something of a shocker, with Minnesota coming off a breakthrough run to the Western Conference finals and former No. 1 pick and franchise cornerstone Towns playing an integral role in it — was that it was primarily about finances. The goal: Getting off of Towns’ four-year, $220 million extension, breaking one giant contract up into multiple, lower-cost contributors, in search of greater depth, increased roster-management flexibility and potential future cost savings — even if it meant a drop-off in on-court effectiveness and diminishing chances of making another deep playoff run.
After working through some to-be-expected early-season struggles developing chemistry with Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert, though, Randle found his niche as a complementary option, balancing bully-ball drives with quick-decision playmaking to help fuel a Wolves offense that eighth in the NBA in offensive efficiency — and that generated more free throws, shots at the rim and corner 3-point attempts with him on the floor than off it.
Randle really hit the gas late in the season following a late-January groin strain. After returning at the beginning of March, the 30-year-old averaged just under 21 points, eight rebounds and six assists per 36 minutes of floor time, shooting 59% on 2-pointers, 40% on 3-pointers and 79% at the free-throw line over that span. With Randle and fellow former Knick Donte DiVincenzo hitting their strides alongside Edwards, Gobert, Jaden McDaniels and Mike Conley, Minnesota ripped off 17 wins in its final 21 games, surging to 49 wins, the West’s No. 6 seed … and a first-round matchup with LeBron James, Luka Dončić and the Los Angeles Lakers, the team that drafted Randle seventh overall back in 2014.
The series represented an opportunity for Randle, who’d missed the Knicks’ 2024 playoff run with a shoulder injury, to exorcise the postseason demons that had plagued him throughout his tenure in New York. He seized it, playing brilliantly in Minnesota’s five-game victories over both the Lakers and Warriors, averaging 23.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game on .620 true shooting across the first two rounds of the playoffs.
Finally, the skills that had earned Randle regular-season recognition in New York were translating when the games mattered most, against the likes of LeBron James and Draymond Green, helping propel the Wolves back to the Western Conference finals for a second straight season.
“It’s really what has turned our season around; his playmaking, his decision-making, playing through on different spots on the floor,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch told reporters during the Warriors series. “I’ve always known he was a good playmaker … He gives us just another, almost another point guard out there. It’s been everything for our turnaround. It’s everything for our team.”
The bloom came off the rose in the Western finals, as a ravenous Thunder defense led by Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso harassed Randle into 18 turnovers in 157 minutes — a reminder of the bad ol’ days of his struggles to consistently create against the Hawks and Heat in previous postseasons — en route to a five-game victory and, eventually, the NBA championship. As disappointing as the ending was for Randle and the Wolves, though, the path there offered a sharp rebuke to the notion that he was just the salary-make-weight consolation prize for Towns; a reminder that he, too, is an All-NBA-caliber offensive playmaker; and a reason to believe that he can contribute to winning in the postseason crucible.
“His physicality, his demeanor, the way he can control pace, control the game on both ends of the floor — it kind of gives us some control,” Wolves point guard Mike Conley told reporters. “It gives us the ability to kind of settle into who we want to be, offensively and defensively.”
Players like that tend to be worth ponying up to keep around. Now, Minnesota has.
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