Nets Pursued Julius Randle in 2019 Before Trading for Him This Summer

The Brooklyn Nets considered acquiring forward Julius Randle in 2019, a move that could have significantly altered their trajectory prior to their pursuit of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving that summer. Sources told The Post that the Nets had explored bringing Randle to Brooklyn years before ultimately trading for him this past offseason.

In 2019, Nets general manager Sean Marks possessed substantial cap space and aimed to attract high-profile free agents. While Durant and Irving ultimately joined the team, the Nets had identified Randle, then a younger player, as a potential target had their primary targets not committed.

Randle was traded from the New Orleans Pelicans to the New York Knicks in 2019, where he spent five seasons. During his tenure with the Knicks, Randle developed into an All-Star, helping the team transition from a lottery team to a playoff contender. He earned three All-Star selections and became a central figure in their resurgence.

Now, at 32 years old, Randle is attempting to replicate that impact with the Nets. In the team's recent 125-121 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Oct. 24, Randle contributed 23 points, six rebounds, and five assists. He has started the season with consecutive games recording at least 20 points, five rebounds, and five assists, joining James Harden as the only Nets players to achieve this feat in the initial games of the season.

Following the loss, Randle emphasized the importance of team cohesion. "We just got to stay positive and connected as a group. Adversities are going to happen, there’s going to be bumps and bruises. But the last thing we can do as a team is separate," Randle said. "So we just got stay connected, positive as a group. Find the positives in the game of how we can build on that. And just continue to go from there."

In other team developments, rookie Mikel Brown Jr. and Egor Dëmin saw their first minutes together on the court late in the fourth quarter against the Cavaliers, contributing to a 14-2 run and posting a plus-5 rating during their four minutes of play. Brown is currently on a minutes restriction that has impacted his ability to start games.

Coach Jordi Fernández addressed the challenges of lineup decisions, particularly regarding playing new players together. "If you’re coaching thinking you want to play certain guys together, it’s when usually you’re doing it for the wrong reasons," Fernández stated. "A lot of times you have to coach the game feeling the game. Obviously you have a preparation — you look at their matchups, their sub patterns, yours, your lineups — and you have an ideal way of how you want the game to go. But then when the game goes, there’s fouls, there’s guys that play better or worse. Then you have to start coaching the game, and see who can guard this guy or all these things. Then the game flows."

Fernández noted that the decision to play Brown and Dëmin together was not pre-planned. "Mikel had a good moment of making a couple of shots. He was vocal. He felt like he was giving his energy. I had the starting group on the bench, then that’s when I felt like it was a good moment to play together. Did I plan it? No. But a lot of times it’s how basketball is, right? We have all this preparation, the coaches do a great job putting all these pages and film and so forth. But then at the end of the day, you have to react to a lot of things that are not controllable in the game."