An Open Letter to the Knicks’ Allan Houston about Julius Randle

May 31, 2021

Re: Helping the Knicks Beat the Hawks by Putting the Team and Fans Ahead of Old Grudges

Dear Allan:

In April 1999, you and I worked together and used the supercharged sports performance program I’d created years earlier to break you out of an 8-game slump.  The next night, you scored 30 points (FG = 59%, 3Pt = 67%) and led the Knicks to a 5-point win against the Charlotte Hornets.  As it turned out, if you scored less than 25 points (almost guaranteed if you were still in the slump), the Knicks would have lost the game; missed the playoffs; never met the Spurs in the NBA Finals; and you would have missed the chance to make “The Shot” to win the playoff series against the Heat.  Your performance against Charlotte after our first session was so outstanding, it became the featured game on your NBA Player page for many seasons afterwards.

You then hired me for the ’99-’00 season with a goal of making your first NBA All-Star team.  Although we only worked together for 30-of-82 regular season games, your “on program” stats were so high that you made the All-Star team, tied your career-best for Points Per Game, and set your career-bests in FG% and 3Pt%.  An analysis of your game data using Advanced NBA Analytics showed that you had more Wins Produced in our 30 games working together that season than you had in any full season in your career; and there was over a 40% chance that any game we worked together would be among the Top 100 games in your 839 regular-season game career.  You shot 50% or better in 27-of-30 (90%) of the games we worked together that season compared to doing so in just 10-of-52 games (19%) on your own.

Most importantly, and most relevant to this letter, the Knicks won 71% of the games that you and I worked together before the All-Star break, compared to winning just 52% when we didn’t work together.  You scoring to the best of your ability while on my program got Jeff Van Gundy named the Eastern Conference All-Star Coach that year by just one game.  If we didn’t succeed so well together, Jeff would have neither NBA Finals Coach nor All-Star Coach on his resume and his future after the ’98-’99 season would have been much less stellar than it turned out.

As you will recall, you were advised to skip our last scheduled session, the day of game 6 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals.  You played badly, shot just 5-for-15 from the floor (0-for-2 from 3), and were blamed by many fans and media members for the loss.  Most importantly that loss knocked the Knicks out of the playoffs.  It was the last game the Knicks played past the second round of the playoffs in the past 21 seasons.

In 2002, right after Don Chaney became the Interim Head Coach, he asked me to speak to the Front Office so he could bring me in to help stop the big losing streak.  I later learned that one of your advisors told Basketball Ops that I had never done anything to help you, despite you having praised my work during our time together, and I wasn’t hired.  At the same time, to paraphrase your own comments in the media, you didn’t rehab your knee injury properly because you were playing too many minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to save Don’s job and it forced you to retire early.

You can see two patterns here: listen to your old advisors, hurt yourself and the team.  Work with me, succeed at levels higher than anything you and your advisors were able to do by yourselves.

Why am I writing all this history, good and bad?  Because the Knicks are on the verge of playoff elimination again and Julius Randle is dealing with a slump just like you were dealing with when we did our first session together before that Charlotte game.  As you know through personal experience, I can help get Julius out of his slump and do it quickly enough to impact his performance in game 5 on Wednesday.  And, because you’re now the Knicks’ Vice President of Player Leadership & Development, you are uniquely situated to put me in a position to do just that.  Bringing me in to work with Julius will give the Knicks the best chance to win on Wednesday and possibly come back from the 3-1 hole they find themselves in against the Hawks.

In a best case scenario, I would work with Julius on Tuesday night and again before the game on Wednesday, the same schedule that you and I kept before your big night against the Hornets.  In a worst-case scenario, I could still help him shoot better with just a Wednesday session.  But none of that can happen without you.

I reached out to the Knicks during the 2013 playoffs and offered to help Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith out of their slumps in what turned out to be Melo’s last chance at the playoffs with the Knicks.  The Knicks rejected my offer then because you and I have bad history (although you never expressed any problems to me when we worked together).  Not surprisingly, the team got bounced from the playoffs a few games later, the last time they made a playoff appearance before this year.

Now, we both have a second chance.  You and I can put the negative part of our past aside, put the Knicks and the fans first, and change the future.  How you respond to this letter could well determine if the Knicks have a chance to come back from the brink of elimination or will end the season with a whimper. 

Right now, the Hawks aren’t beating the Knicks; the Knicks are losing to the Hawks.  With Julius continuing to shoot as he has during these playoffs, a quick end to the series is likely.  With Julius playing at the level that won him the Most Improved Player award, the Knicks have more than a fighting chance to come back and possibly win the series.  Your results when we worked together should be reminder enough that I’m Julius’ best chance at breaking out of his slump quickly.  If, as I expect, you’re willing to put the Knicks and the fans ahead of old grudges, there’s still time to make some more magic, but we have to act now.

Please DM me ASAP at @artrondeau on Twitter and let’s see what we can work out.

Best wishes for continued success.

Art Rondeau