Knicks HC Tom Thibodeau has strong reaction to Julius Randle trade rumors



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Knicks HC Tom Thibodeau has strong reaction to Julius Randle trade rumors

New York Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau couldn't believe the reports that indicated Julius Randle was trying to force his way out of New York. The Post reported that some around the NBA believe that Randle has been "behaving in a James Harden type of way." Harden didn't directly ask the Brooklyn Nets for a trade but he made it clear with his behavior that he wanted out.

Harden ended up being traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. “Are you serious? Are you serious? Come on,” Thibodeau said before Wednesday’s home game against Charlotte, per The Post. “You know I’m not going to respond to something like that anyway.

Let’s be real”. Thibodeau was then asked directly if Randle wants to be in New York. “Yeah. So as a coach, you coach the players that you have. And you love them all. And I do. If you play for me, I love you. It’s really that simple.

The challenge for us is to bring the best out of each other," Thibodeau answered.

It has been a challenging season for Randle

Randle has been fined in over $100,000 this season for various infractions. “Look, every year is different.

You’re faced with new and different challenges. There are a lot of things — this year didn’t go like last year did,” Thibodeau said. “Hopefully we can finish up like we did last year. Things change all the time.

They can change from going real good to bad quickly and they can go from being not as good as you would like to great real quick, also. “Just keep going. I think goes with the turf. You’re going to get a lot of credit.

You’re going to get a lot of blame. That’s the way it works here. Stay focused, come in the next day and just keep working. Just keep working”. Randle, who was selected to his first NBA All-Star game last season, is averaging 20.1 points, 9.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists this season.

“Maybe he’s banged up and he did things that helped us win this game. So you look at things in totality,” Thibodeau said. “Once the season is over, we’ll look at things in totality. We’ll look at things we did well, we’ll look at things we did that we didn’t like.

And then we’ll try to make improvements over the summer. “But this is ongoing. Where I want us to be is since the All-Star break on, we’ve been playing good basketball. Keep doing that. Let’s see what happens”.