A very well-done video, it serves as a reminder that our favorite players are more than just athletes.
We live in an era in which everyone in the NBA has a platform and ample opportunities to create content. And it’s led to this phase where players from all around the league have taken advantage of this by starting their own vlogs, podcast shows, and even production companies.
Just on the Knicks, we have Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, who are the co-stars of The Roommates Podcast, and there’s also Mitchell Robinson, who doesn’t quite have his own show but is pretty active on social media and regularly goes live on Instagram.
Besides those three guys, the Knicks, unsurprisingly, have a pretty quiet group of guys. Outside of the few appearances they make on other people’s shows, for the most part, they’ve usually kept their lives to themselves.
That’s why it was somewhat surprising to see Julius Randle, whose YouTube channel only had 499 subscribers before Friday night, post his first YouTube video on Friday afternoon.
Even more pleasantly surprising was the title (Julius Randle: Family, Recovery, and Life Beyond Basketball | OFFICIAL SERIES: EP. 1.), suggesting that this was just the first video of what will become a recurring series.
The video, which is sponsored by his on-court sneaker brand Sketchers, starts with a black and white clip of his season-ending injury that was suffered against the Miami Heat with January 27 overlayed on top of the clip. Hubie Brown, much like every other Knicks fan that day, is heard voicing his concern as Randle holds his right shoulder.
As the scene then cuts to Randle talking about his thoughts at the time, he speaks about how he thought that he would come back sooner and that is then followed up with his wife, Kendra Randle, saying, “I knew once he didn’t get up immediately that he was hurt bad.
“Usually he’s tough. He always just pops right up and keeps going. He’s gonna stay in the game no matter what, so when he didn’t get up, I knew that it was probably serious. So my heart sank because he worked so hard to get to that point.”
We then get a rare behind-the-scenes look of Randle’s offseason workout with ESPN personality, and self-proclaimed Knicks fan, Stephen A Smith talking about Randle in the background. The All-NBA forward can be seen performing a wide array of movements that include, but are not limited to, farmer’s walks, and rear foot elevated split squats.
The video suddenly switches its tone and fans are shown a touching scene of Randle and his son walking up a sandy hill by the beach at 4:45 AM with Frank Ocean’s Moon River serving as the mood-setter. And following a quick scene of his breakfast, we get a full one-minute montage of his on-court workout.
As his workout concludes, Randle goes back to speaking. Through a conversation with his beloved son Kyden, the big man talks about the importance of those around him. His trainer, Amoila Cesar, close friend, Brad, wife, and sons are all mentioned as being crucial in knowing which buttons to push, holding him accountable, and being the support group that he needs.
After getting a view at him and his family spending some quality time courtside at a Drew League game in Los Angeles, his wife shares a message that highlights just how much she and their family appreciate Randle.
She, to the joy and relief of many Knicks fans, finishes her statement by saying, “His recovery has been amazing… He is ahead of schedule. He is doing awesome, and he is ready to come back.”
The first video of the series ends with a very candid Randle who admits that he doesn’t know what’s coming next but seems incredibly upbeat and confident saying, “Whatever it is, it’s gonna be amazing”
All in all, this was an incredibly well-put-together video. It may have been different from traditional vlogs that are more common among the younger players, and certain parts of the video seem a bit more carefully planned out and thought out. But this video does a great job of taking a player who has been a very polarizing figure within the fanbase and making him human.
Viewers do get to see that Randle and his team continue to put in an incredible amount of work towards his recovery. But you also get a chance to see that basketball is just a small part of who he is.
Randle, like a lot of athletes, sometimes gets treated like they aren’t human. But at the end of the day, he is a father, a husband first, and a basketball player second. And it’s important to be reminded of that sometimes, especially for a player like Randle, who has been misunderstood and unfairly treated at times.
Hopefully, this new series will continue to shed some light on who Randle is off the court and give Knicks fans an unprecedented look into his life throughout the grueling NBA season, while serving as a way to get a more wholistic, contextualized, and fair view of not just the player that Randle is, but the person he is.