EDINA, Minn. — A white Range Rover pulls up to the curb next to a sprawling park in the Minneapolis suburbs. Julius Randle steps out and uncoils his 6-foot-9 frame toward the sky, like a giant oak tree with leaves stretching to get as close as possible to the mid-September sun’s nourishing energy.
Randle looks up and squints, smiling in a black, sleeveless Timberwolves shirt that offers a little bit of a breather on an unseasonable 95-degree day. This is Dallas weather.
“This feels like home,” he says.
In more ways than one.
Just over two weeks from training camp, Randle has not come here to get in a workout as he prepares for his second season with the Minnesota Timberwolves. He is carrying a plastic bag from DICK’S Sporting Goods in one hand, and as soon as he steps onto the green grass, he is surrounded by the third-graders from the Hawkeyes flag football team. He reaches into the bag and pulls out the white belts with blue and red flags attached to the hips and starts helping each 8-year-old strap them to their waist.
“The hardest thing for me is keeping them on task,” he says. “You know, 8-, 9-year-old kids, their minds wander everywhere.“
His oldest son, Kyden, is the quarterback. He towers over his teammates while his 6-foot-9 father watches a play develop from behind the defense. Julius does push-ups with the kids as faux punishment when one shows up a few minutes late and runs a lap with the team as atonement for the loss the previous weekend. The smile never leaves his face.
The Hawkeyes cluster around the NBA star at football practice (Dean Watson / TrueCuir)
Out here, in this wide-open green space lined with mature trees and surrounded by gorgeous houses, Randle is just a father playing catch with his son. His wife, younger son and infant daughter are playing on a nearby playground. His second season with the Timberwolves is just around the corner, and he has a new three-year, $100 million contract that brings some stability after a memorable run with the New York Knicks ended with claustrophobia and angst.
Out here, Randle can breathe.
“Now it just feels very settled,” Randle said. “I would say even this summer and leading up to the season is probably the happiest I’ve been in a really long time as far as just career, family, everything.”
A year ago this week, the Knicks stunned the league when they traded their three-time NBA All-Star, Donte DiVincenzo and a first-round pick to Minnesota for Karl-Anthony Towns two days before training camp.
What followed was a hectic season of discovery and, ultimately, success in Minnesota for Randle and the Timberwolves. For Towns and the Knicks, too.
For most of last season, the Randles left moving boxes unopened in their new home, unsure if they would be here long enough to unpack them. Now they enter Year 2 with Julius cemented as an essential part of a team that has made two straight trips to the Western Conference finals. And looking back on how things ended in New York, with Randle battling injury, depression and disillusionment in an intense environment, they see now how much a change of scenery was needed.
“I did notice how much it affected him,” Kendra, Randle’s wife, said. “So I was happy to see him get to a place where he could breathe and have fun playing again because I feel like it kind of took his joy a little bit, all of that chaos there.”
When the Randles first landed in New York in 2019, the Knicks were coming off a miserable 17-win season and had missed the playoffs for six straight years. They won 21 games in Randle’s first season, but he quickly blossomed from a promising but inconsistent in his younger days with the Los Angeles Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans to a go-to centerpiece with the Knicks.
He made his first All-Star team and won the Most Improved Player Award while leading the Knicks to the playoffs in 2020-21, and his bully-ball toughness helped endear him to the Madison Square Garden faithful. Julius and Kendra loved the energy of one of the league’s most storied arenas and reveled in the chance to live in the city as they started raising their young family.
As the team started to taste some success, the stakes were raised and the walls began to close in on Julius. He averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds and made his second All-Star team in 2022-23, a season that included the first playoff series win for the franchise in a decade. But Randle shot just 37.4 percent from the field over the two series, a victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers and then a loss to the Miami Heat. Randle was playing with a severely sprained ankle that required surgery that summer, which did little to quell the grumbling from the fans and scrutiny from the media.
“New York was an amazing time. It was a great place. I loved it,” Julius said. “I had a lot of great moments there and great experiences and met a lot of great people and played a lot of great games. You get to play in the Garden, you know? Have all those experiences. But it also comes with a lot, too, man. It comes with a lot of different things. And it’s a lot to navigate.”
He got off to another great start in 2023-24, averaging 24.0 points, 9.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists to make his third All-Star Game. Just as the Knicks were really starting to take off in January, Randle injured his shoulder in the team’s sixth straight victory. He did not play the rest of the season and watched his teammates put together a stirring run to the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Jalen Brunson emerged as the new star, DiVincenzo became a cult hero after being inserted into the starting lineup, and Randle started to feel increasingly isolated as the team took off without him.
“You know how New York is, man. You’re under a different microscope,” he said. “So it’s like, you’re not just battling and trying to win. It seems like you’re battling a million different things.”
Randle came to New York when the Knicks were in the throes of one of the worst stretches in franchise history. He poured everything into helping pull the team out of the gutter. And now he felt left behind.
The isolation and the narrative took him to a dark place. He self-medicated with marijuana (the league stopped testing players for marijuana use in 2023). He withdrew from those around him. Depression, anger and anxiety started to suffocate him.
“At the end of that time, I was kind of at my darkest moment,” he said. “Just miserable, like in a way where I just was not having fun going to work every single day.”
There were strains both at work and at home. He would return to the apartment from rehabbing his shoulder and retreat to a private room away from his family, wallowing in his own misery.
“I would just be in there watching TV in a dark room,” he said. “I didn’t even want to show my face. I kind of just wanted to be left alone and, like, in hiding. Just very frustrated and angry and all those different emotions. It just wasn’t a good place to be in.”
When Kendra looked at her struggling husband, she barely recognized him. This was not the warm, engaging Julius who was so involved when they were in Los Angeles and New Orleans. This was a sullen, withdrawn and bitter Julius who was being crushed by the weight of his injuries and the unrelenting spotlight in the league’s biggest market.
“As a wife, I could just see it weighing on him and he would come home and just not be present,” she said.
Kendra grew so concerned with the way things were going that she started to look for help. She had seen social media posts from Dr. Daniel Amen, a high-profile psychiatrist known for using SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) brain scans as a way to diagnose ailments and treat brain health. The method is heavily debated in the scientific community, but Kendra reached out to him directly and arranged for Julius and Dr. Amen to meet.
Julius and Kendra credit Dr. Amen’s treatment with getting him to quit marijuana, something that Julius said was “stealing his soul.” Amen also worked on identifying what was causing his depression and anxiety and gave him tools to manage those stressors, which helped him re-engage with his family and take control of his environment.
“He brought it back out of him, this calmness,” Kendra said. “Even with the kids, the craziness day to day, he’s just back to who he was before. It’s really amazing to me.”
Julius credits Kendra with understanding how much help he needed in the moment and then being proactive to bring him out of a fog that he could not shake.
“I think one of the most important decisions in life is who you choose as a partner,” Julius said. “My wife, she’s seen the best of me, she’s seen the worst of me. So she can be like, ‘That’s not who you are.’”
The therapy certainly played a big role in Randle rediscovering the clarity of mind he needed. But the relocation to Minnesota, as hectic as it was, has expedited his personal turnaround.
Even before the trade went down, Randle had a feeling that his time in New York was winding down. His agents at CAA and the team had not had any discussions on a contract extension, and Randle was having a hard time seeing where he fit in with this new Knicks roster. Randle figured that 2024-25 would be his final season with the Knicks but thought it would last at least to the trade deadline in February.
That realization didn’t dull the pain when the trade finally went down. Two days before the deal, Randle appeared at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new school in the Bronx. Knicks leadership, including team president Leon Rose and head coach Tom Thibodeau, came to watch Randle donate $1.3 million toward the project. Then, in a flash, he was gone.
“When I got traded, I’m like damn, I can’t believe this got taken from me,” Randle said. “It’s like, you worked so hard to build something, and it was just snatched away.”
It was late September, and Kendra was pregnant. Kyden was in school and had a strong group of friends that he did not want to leave. And Julius was leaving a team that he knew very well and sliding into the position occupied by Towns, who spent nine years as the face of the franchise.
It took one good night of sleep for Randle to shake off the shock and start to warm up to the situation with the Timberwolves. They were coached by Chris Finch, who was an assistant in New Orleans when Randle was there. The two hit it off to such a degree that Randle lobbied for the Knicks to hire Finch when they were going through a coaching search in 2020. They had Anthony Edwards, one of the brightest young stars in the league, and a team built to win now and give him another crack at playoff success.
“Once I got here, I was like it was a breath of fresh air,” Randle said. “I’ve been loving it ever since, even when things weren’t going as good.”
Randall adapted to his new life on the Timberwolves (Dean Watson / TrueCuir)
The early days on the court were dicey. Randle was replacing Towns, whose game was built more around his 3-point shooting and drives to the basket, while Randle liked the ball in his hands as a playmaker. Randle was also working off the rust from his shoulder injury. Playing next to Rudy Gobert was an adjustment as well.
After serving as the offensive focal point for so much of his time in New York, Randle had to find the right mix of looking for his own shot and creating for others now that he was serving as Edwards’ sidekick.
There was plenty of concern in the Wolves fan base, especially as they watched Towns light it up in New York. Some believed Sixth Man of the Year Naz Reid should have started in Randle’s place. But Finch never wavered in his belief that Randle was exactly the player they needed in that spot.
“It’s hard to block it all out,” Finch said during the playoffs. “But we inherited a two-time All-NBA player, a multi-time All-Star. We knew we were getting a really, really good player. It was incumbent upon us to give it every chance to work. I was pretty adamant about that.”
Randle missed 13 games in February with a groin injury, but that is where his fast connection with the Wolves proved to be most valuable. In New York, Randle felt like he was on the outside looking in at a team that was surging without him. In Minnesota, the players and coaches made sure he was included in everything, and his view from the bench gave him clarity on what the Wolves needed from him.
“I was surrounded by great people, and that’s what made it easy,” Randle said. “Like, all right, we can work through this, you know? Because everybody was just so supportive from top to bottom.”
When he came back from his injury, the difference was immediate. The Wolves went on an eight-game winning streak, while Randle settled into a more clearly defined role — primary playmaker, secondary scorer — that fit him perfectly.
The struggles of the first two months gave way to a newfound identity. Randle became a classic point forward, creating open looks for his teammates and lowering his shoulder into the chests of his opponents when the Wolves needed a bucket. He also started to deliver on the defensive end, moving deftly between power forward and center depending on if he was playing with Gobert or Reid as they surged down the stretch. Minnesota finished the regular season 17-4 to lock up the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, which gave Randle the chance to answer another open question about his playoff bona fides.
“It was never about me as an individual. I think it was more about what my worth was,” Randle said of the conversation around him. “Am I a winning player? Do I contribute to winning? And that’s really all I wanted to show. And when it was time for me to play my best basketball, that’s when I was able to play best basketball. Because I was just able to focus on that.”
Randle’s individual statistics (18.7 points, 7.1 rebounds, 4.7 assists) all dropped noticeably from his New York days. But his value to the Wolves grew as the season went on. He was one of the best players in the league through the first two rounds of the playoffs, averaging 22.6 points and shooting 39 percent from 3 in a 4-1 wipeout of the Lakers in Round 1. In the second round, he dominated Draymond Green and the Golden State Warriors, putting up 25.2 points, 7.4 assists and 6.6 rebounds in another 4-1 series.
“It’s a huge testament to him and the coaching staff,” Wolves President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly said. “They figured out a role that would be most conducive to his personal success and certainly our team success.”
The Wolves finally hit a wall in the conference finals, with Oklahoma City’s swarming defense squeezing them into submission. It was a disappointing finish to an otherwise successful season. Randle averaged 17.4 points and only 3.0 assists in the series. And while there was certainly dissatisfaction with the results, Randle never the finger being pointed only at him.
“When I’m here, I feel like I don’t have to be perfect every single day,” he said. “And that just allows me to have that easiness and be comfortable to be like, all right, I’m not perfect every single day, but I’m trying my best. And people aren’t judging me just because you have one bad moment or two bad moments.”
When summer arrived, Randle had a decision to make. He had a player option on the final year of his contract, which would have allowed him to become a free agent if he so desired. When he thought about his fit with the team, his relationship with Finch and his affinity for the pace of life in Minnesota, it really wasn’t a decision at all.
“It was to the point where it was like, all right man, I just want to be here, so how are we going to make this work?” Randle said. “Let’s make it work, and can we do something fair on both sides?”
Initially, Randle was hoping for a big raise from his $33 million salary. His contributions in the playoffs certainly made a strong case for it. But the Wolves were determined to get below the second-apron payroll threshold so they could regain some flexibility in team-building around Edwards. The market was also a difficult one for free agents, with few teams having the spending power to offer Randle an exorbitant extension and the prospects to contend for a championship that could have lured him away.
Kendra was also keen on staying. It had been a hard year of transition. Much to Kyden’s chagrin, they homeschooled him because they weren’t sure if the Timberwolves were going to keep Julius for the long haul and didn’t want to have to pull him out of another school and away from another group of friends if he was traded midseason.
“If we put him back in school, he makes new friends and then we leave immediately during the season or in the summer, he’s going to kill us again,” Kendra thought.
But the franchise and the people of Minnesota were welcoming to Kendra, who gave birth to their daughter, Romi, during the playoffs. Born in Kentucky, she also felt comfortable in a more midwestern setting. They no longer live in an apartment, but in a house with a big backyard for the kids to play in.
“This is more like home, seeing green and being in a house,” Kendra said as she sat on their white living room couch and looked out of a vast picture window into the tree-covered yard. “And New York was such a fun experience. I would never take it back for the kids to get to experience the city and city living and school there. But this is more like normal, for us and for them.”
She also saw how much more comfortable Julius was. After more than a year of moodiness and depression, his work with Amen and his life in Minnesota were putting the light back into his eyes.
“When we came here, I was like, ‘Oh my god, Julius is back,’” Kendra said. “Like the L.A. Julius, the New Orleans Julius, he’s back. So I could tell it was a great change for him.”
Prior to arriving in Minnesota, Randle would enjoy seeing the surprise on anyone’s face when they asked him where was his favorite place to play. It wasn’t LA with the glitzy Lakers. It wasn’t New York. It was New Orleans. Life was simpler there. He lived in a quiet neighborhood that was 15 minutes from the practice facility and 10 minutes from the airport.
He has found the same in Minnesota. On a good day, he can get from his home in the suburbs to the team’s downtown Minneapolis practice facility and arena in 10 to 12 minutes. It can take twice that to move a couple of city blocks in the NYC traffic.
“My work-life balance, or just my ability to separate the two, have been a lot better since I’ve been here,” he said.
And with nearly everyone back from the team last season, the Wolves will enter this season with a real chance to make another deep playoff run. Randle will continue to work on his chemistry on offense with Gobert, but the familiarity is there now. There are no other secrets to unearth. Edwards has made Randle a believer in their partnership, in what can be possible when a 31-year-old bully-baller and a 24-year-old dynamo truly connect. Finch is starting his fifth full season as head coach, with the previous four all ending in the playoffs.
“He’s ready to go,” Kendra said. “He’s like, ‘I feel this is the year, this is the year.’ He’s telling me that every day.”
Most importantly for Julius, his mind is clear. The weight on his shoulders has been lifted. The Randles went through it as their time wound down in New York. But they have emerged on the other side of it tighter than ever. Mama and the kids are omnipresent at the arena, backstage and even on the interview podium with Big Ju.
The Hawkeyes practice concludes (Dean Watson / TrueCuir)
“Once you come out of that, I feel like it’s just been like night and day for me,” Randle said. “It’s like, all right, I’m never going back to being down like that. I’m never going back to being upset like that or I’m never going back to letting things that are out of my control worry me and bother me like that. I’m not gonna put myself in those situations.”
Back at the football field, the Hawkeyes have just wrapped up practice. Randle pats the boys on the head, says hello to a few of the parents who all crane their necks up at him and try to act normal around an NBA star. He and Kyden jump into a ride with Dean Watson, who also coaches the team and runs Randle’s media company, TrueCuir. Kendra, Jaycey and Romi have already left in another vehicle.
The whole family is headed home.
(Photo: Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images)