NEW YORK — When Julius Randle signed with the Knicks in the summer of 2019, he joined a team that had just suffered its sixth consecutive losing season.

The Knicks were fresh off of a 17-win campaign that matched the worst season in franchise history.

Days earlier, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving had spurned them for the crossborough Nets.

It was understandable that Randle’s three-year, $63 million contract went a bit under the radar at the time, but the power forward proved instrumental in the Knicks’ turnaround.

Friday night marked Randle’s first game back at Madison Square Garden since the Knicks traded him and Donte DiVincenzo to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the three-team blockbuster that brought center Karl-Anthony Towns to New York.

“He had a great run and helped lift the team up,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said Friday of Randle. “He not only excelled individually, but the team excelled while he was here.”

Towns did not play Friday due to a sprained thumb, while DiVincenzo sat with a sprained toe, but Randle earned a loud ovation during pregame introductions.

Randle averaged 22.6 points, 9.9 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game and earned three All-Star selections in his five seasons with the Knicks.

The Knicks made the playoffs in his second season — Thibodeau’s first — and continued to ascend with the subsequent arrivals of Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and others.

Randle, 30, was not a perfect player with the Knicks.

The ball would stick too much to him at times, leading to poor shot selection.

His statistics dipped during his two postseason appearances, and he did not play in last year’s run to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals due to a season-ending shoulder injury.

He infamously gave a thumbs-down gesture to Knicks fans who had been booing at the Garden during a 2022 victory.

But Randle’s tenure is one Thibodeau looks back on fondly.

“He did a terrific job for us,” Thibodeau said.

DiVincenzo, meanwhile, signed a four-year, $50 million contract with the Knicks in 2023. He ultimately played only one season with the Knicks, but he quickly emerged as a fan favorite.

The sharp-shooting DiVincenzo thrived alongside former Villanova teammates Brunson and Hart and set a Knicks single-season record for 3-pointers by making 283 last year.

The fanfare only grew when DiVincenzo drilled game-winning 3-pointers in Game 2 of the Knicks’ first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers and in Game 1 of their second-round series with the Indiana Pacers.

“Donte was here for a lot less time, but he had a great impact,” Thibodeau said. “Both guys were classy guys, played hard all the time, and did a really good job for us.”

But this offseason spelled the end of Randle and DiVincenzo’s stints in New York.

The Knicks and Randle failed to reach a contract extension, while the departure of Isaiah Hartenstein and the continued absence of Mitchell Robinson following May’s ankle surgery left the Knicks without a starting center.

They saw an opportunity to add Towns, a four-time All-Star who was about to begin a four-year, $224 million contract extension.

Towns was coming off of a quiet Western Conference finals, had been playing out of position at power forward to accommodate Rudy Gobert, and was no longer Minnesota’s focal point due to the emergence of Anthony Edwards.

The Knicks and Wolves made the trade on Oct. 2, less than three weeks before the start of the regular season, with the Charlotte Hornets helping to facilitate it.

The 6-11 Towns quickly proved to be a perfect fit, thriving as a pick-and-roll partner with Brunson while putting up career-best shooting numbers.

“We knew we were getting a good player, and in order to get a good player, you need to give up good players,” Thibodeau said. “The biggest thing was the need at the center position. We knew losing Isaiah and then having Mitch injured, we had to fill that need. We’ve been very pleased, obviously, with Karl.”

Towns, who hails from nearby New Jersey, is averaging 25.4 points per game while shooting 55.0% from the field and 44.9% from 3-point range. He is averaging a career-high 13.9 rebounds per game.

His Knicks entered Friday at 27-15, good for third place in the Eastern Conference, even if a recent 3-5 stretch renewed concerns about the team’s depth following the trade.

The Timberwolves, meanwhile, arrived at the Garden with a disappointing 21-19 record after finishing third in the West last season at 56-26 and advancing to the conference finals.

Randle did not play in the Wolves’ preseason game at the Garden. He scored 24 points in their 133-107 loss to the Knicks in Minnesota last month.

Randle entered Friday averaging 19.5 points per game on 47.8% shooting, but the new-look Wolves’ chemistry remains a “work in progress,” head coach Chris Finch said.

“I’ve got nothing but a lot of admiration for Julius for what we’ve asked him to do,” Finch said. “We’ve asked him to score. We’ve asked him to play-make. We’ve asked him to guard in a lot of different situations. His biggest contribution for us has been doing all of that.

“Our inconsistencies so far this season, everybody’s kind of trying to adjust and figure out the new reality, and he’s been at the front of that. He’s done it all.”

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