“Our baby girl, Romi Joelle is here👑💗 I hope everyone had an amazing Easter🙏🐰- Randle party of 5 🤯”. With this tweet, Kendra Randle officially announced the arrival of the newest member of their family around 2 weeks ago. Her arrival could not have come at a better time. After all, Julius had helped the Timberwolves earn an upset victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, his old team, only a few days before the birth. The fact that Kendra got pregnant around the same time Randle had to shift to the Timberwolves, and Romi arrived after Randle got his first bit of postseason action in nearly two years, served as a sign. Therefore, as the Timberwolves’ playoff joy has increased, the player took some time out to appreciate and cherish his good luck charm.

The Minnesota Timberwolves player recently took to his official Instagram account to share a post. It featured a series of photos, starting off with a black-and-white filtered picture of himself and Romi Joelle in his arms. The next picture featured everyone from Kendra to the couple’s two sons: Kyden and Jaycey. Julius attached a caption alongside the post, that read “Romi Joelle 💖 You got daddy’s heart. Two big brothers that will always protect you. And the perfect example in mommy to look up to. We love you princess 👸💕”. The Timberwolves star’s “Girl Dad” mode earned him love from several of his NBA peers, including Trae Young and Terance Mann.

The past few days have seen several updates about the newborn coming in from the Randle household. Last Friday, Kendra took to Instagram to highlight a picture of Jayce sitting on the sofa, while holding his newborn sister in his arms. Looking into the camera, the 3-year-old had a grumpy expression on display. Kendra provided the context behind the picture by writing, “He was mad at me because he wants to hold the baby 24/7 so none of us do😅😅”. Yes, well, we all must have been in that situation at some point as kids.

In another viral photo, Kendra could be seen sleeping with Romi, meaning that Jayce took the photo. Kendra shared it and revealed, “One of the boys took this of me last night lol. Newborn life😅But I’m actually exhausted from Jayce lol”.

While Kendra got to share several lovable moments, the above post is amongst the first few ones that Julius Randle has shared with his 976,000 followers. Well, no one can blame him if he wasn’t around. After all, he was on the road, playing an important part in the Minnesota Timberwolves’ ongoing playoff run.

Julius Randle pushes away “unfair criticism” in favor of praise after Timberwolves’ 4-1 series

The Minnesota Timberwolves-Los Angeles Lakers playoff series saw some major moments emerge. None of them, however, compared to the two underdogs of this recent tournament getting their chance to shine in the spotlight: Rudy Gobert and Julius Randle. Randle played a critical role throughout the series, averaging 22.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.4 assists while defending LeBron James! Furthermore, his post-season run was made sweeter when you consider the fact that it was his first chance to flip the playoff narrative that haunted him in New York, and that too against the team that drafted him in 2014, before the player’s rights were renounced in 2018. By the end of it, the player had nothing but praise coming his way from Chris Finch.

“I’d also just like to say that Julius Randle was absolutely huge in this series. Another guy who’s had a lot of unfair criticism in his career, and he was outstanding on both ends of the floor,” said the Timberwolves head coach. “We don’t win this series without Julius, who was consistently great every single night, just doing a lot of little things as well as timely things.”

It was no secret that during his tenure with the Knicks, Julius Randle was often criticized for his lack of shooting consistency, his need to have the ball run through him, and his shortcomings on the defensive front. Well, none of that was there to see when Randle let the scoring effort in Game 5, behind Rudy Gobert, by scoring 23 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists. With Anthony Edwards having a poor shooting night, Randle and Gobert came out on top to save the day.

If Romi Joelle is Julius Randle’s lucky charm, one hopes that she makes an on-court appearance in the coming days. After all, whoever the Timberwolves face next won’t be that easy to defeat.