Julius Randle intends to SIGN 3-yr deal with Minnesota Timberwolves

Julius Randle intends to SIGN 3-yr deal with Minnesota Timberwolves

we’ve got breaking news out of the NBA where Julius Randall has agreed to a new three-year $100 million deal with the Timberwolves that’s according to ESPN he declined his $31 million option in favor of a new long-term contract with the T-Wolves a three-time all-star was dealt to Minnesota in October as part of the Carl Anthony Towns trade in his first season with the T-Wolves Randall posted just under 19.7 seven rebounds per game as the Timberwolves made the conference finals in back-to-back years for the first time in franchise history we’ve got our NBA host and analyst John Gonzalez joining us now and John as we hear the news of Julius Randle sticking with the Minnesota Timberwolves your first reaction to him being a part of this core now with Anthony Edwards and of course now Nas Reed too
yeah I think this was probably not in the Timberwolves long-term best interest but they’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place here Mike on the one hand they went to back-to-back Western Conference finals as you mentioned right so if you’re one of those teams it’s very rare to do that you think to yourself hey even in a loaded Western Conference we’re competitors we were right there we could have potentially unseated Oklahoma City maybe it could have been us that went to the NBA finals so why don’t we just keep the core together but you know with Julius Randle locking him into three years for $100 million with a player option on the back end that makes that contract tougher to unload if down the road you decide hey we want to move on from him i wasn’t a huge Julius Randle guy to begin with starting last year i thought that the Knicks got the better end of that trade initially when the team got off to a slow start I thought maybe they should unplug Julius Randle from the starting line move him to the bench in fairness he was much better after the All-Star break he really changed how he played it was less of the ball goes in he dribbles the air out of the ball and he wasn’t much of a passer or a facilitator that changed as the season went along however I’m just not sure that there’s a huge Julius Randle market here and now you’re probably just under the second apron but still in an apron situation first apron situation that’s going to make team building pretty difficult and they were always coming into this year or this offseason rather deciding between it was a sort of a pick two situation between Nas Reed Julius Randall and Nquille Alexander Walker well Nas Reed got his extension now Julius Randle gets his so it’s probably bye-bye Nquille Alexander Walker uh it’s gonna make things tough for the Wolves going forward
you mentioned being stuck between a rock and a hard place because they did make it back to the Western Conference Finals so when you look at the Thunder they are the team that’s going to be the perennial power there in the West just how close are they really with this move yeah I mean they’re in a a group it’s a grabag situation where if you threw in I don’t know six to eight other teams in the Western Conference you picked one out Mike and you told me that’s the team that’s going to challenge Oklahoma City next year i’d say sure that makes sense i mean you got the Lakers and the Warriors and the Nuggets and obviously the Wolves because the Wolves are uh have made back-to-back Western Conference Finals but you’ve got ascended teams too that you’ve got to factor in uh like the Spurs the Clippers last year I think um were better than the sum of their parts and we’ll see what happens with James Harden as this day continues but yeah they’re in the mix but I don’t think I wouldn’t have them as the principal contender to challenge Oklahoma City next year don’t forget that they got off to a pretty slow start they played much better after the all-star break for sure after the new year and once they got into uh the Western Conference playoffs they really started to gain some momentum but you know they also drew the Golden State Warriors when Steph Curry was damaged so that’s super helpful right and then all of a sudden they made they got the Lakers in five then they got Golden State in five and then they all of a sudden they show up to play Oklahoma City and Oklahoma City absolutely steamrololled them i thought the Pacers gave Oklahoma City a much a much better effort i thought the Nuggets gave Oklahoma City a much better effort so how close are they you know I don’t think that they’re all that close
it’ll be interesting to see but here we go we got another domino that has fallen today we talked about LeBron James opting in to his uh player option earlier today now Julius Randall has John thank you so much again Julius Randall has opted out excuse me but signed the three-year extension with the T-Wolves uh but here are some other notable upcoming dates in the association uh free agency is going to begin tomorrow 600 p.m eastern summer league action starts July 5th to the 8th then free agent signing period is going to open July 6th and after that we have the Las Vegas summer league running for 10 days there in July

John Gonzalez joins CBS Sports HQ to discuss the breaking news regarding Minnesota Timberwolves forward Julius Randle.

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