NBA Free Agency Watch: It Did Not Take Julius Randle Long To Find A New Home
Well that didn’t take long now did it! Pretty hilarious considering Rajon Rondo just got $9M a year to be a Laker and yet here Randle was signing for that exact same money somewhere else. To be honest this is a great price for the Pelicans, but it means one thing in my mind, that Boogie is out the door. Where he might go is anyone’s guess seeing as how the Lakers no longer have cap room to fit him, neither does DAL since they brought in Jordan. The NBA landscape is thin of teams that can offer him big money, with teams like PHI/CHI/ATL the only ones with around $20M in space. The problem is the Sixers don’t really need Boogie as they don’t play big, often times running Saric at the four.
For Randle, he should have every opportunity to start next to Anthony Davis, and why I initially like this move is because it forces AD to play the five, where he becomes perhaps the biggest mismatch in the entire NBA. I know he prefers the four, but it’s time he makes the switch to a full time center so the Pelicans can be a matchup nightmare. The short deal allows them to maintain flexibility moving forward, but they can absolutely use a guy like Randle who showed a ton of promise last year and is ready to break out in my opinion. What’s interesting is I’m curious how he’ll be used offensively since he isn’t really much of a spread the floor shooter, but he can attack the rim in space and finish at the rim. If you’re the Pelicans I feel like you’d much rather give short term money to a guy like Randle who’s young as opposed to have to commit big money and perhaps more years to someone like Boogie who is coming off a brutal achilles injury.
Advertisement
The question is also what does Anthony Davis feel about this whole thing, with Rondo leaving and now this sign pointing to Boogie being out the door. He has a few years left before the Pelicans need to be worried, but at the same time they should always be worried about Davis demanding a trade. To me this signing can work, but time will tell if the Pelicans actually take a step forward after what was a pretty successful 2018 season.
So for Pelicans fans congratulations, here in my mind is your new starting PF