Julius Randle is an NBA All-Star, but what’s next in his offensive development?
Julius Randle has already won over our hearts and minds with his ascent to NBA All-Star this year. But in a league that’s constantly looking towards the next big thing, what could be the next step in Randle’s development? The most popular play in basketball might hold the answer.
As it turns out, 2020-21 Julius Randle is a bunch of things we were recently oh-so-sure he wasn’t, including but not limited to the following:
That he’s the basketballing equivalent of freshly cut grass.
That he’s one of the simultaneously strongest and fastest and largest lifeforms in the solar system.
That he does an excellent midrange impersonation of MJ, ’98 vintage.
That he’s sagely decided to never miss a 3-pointer again.
That he’s a straight-up, honest-to-god good defender.
That he’s equal parts ballet dancer and straight-line ruffian.
That the depths of his bag can only be navigated with echolocation.
That he is — against the odds, preseason expectations, and knuckle dragging wail of the LOL-Knicks hardcore — a thoroughly deserving first-time NBA All-Star.
Now is a time for simply appreciating this wonderfully off-kilter reality. Pinch yourself, folks. The New York Knicks have a young, unexpected, just-entering-his-prime All-Star. A representative at the NBA shiny-thing summit. Finally, at long last, this fanbase, after enduring all the pre-Randle almost-saviors and the whoopee-cushion pretenders, after season on season of being a purgatorial NBA doormat, facedown in the Eastern Conference mud: we have an exhibition-approved star to celebrate. And celebrate we will, over the All-Star break, otherwise known as Emperor Julius’ enthronement.
Surely now we just sit back, smother ourselves in oil, and bask in the rays of our newfound sun. This — right here and right now — is what we’ve been waiting for.
Except, just as King of Cool Walt Frazier warned on a recent Knick broadcast, labels of status come with the baggage of heightened expectations. It’s unavoidable. We are creatures trained to scan the horizon for The Next Thing rather than bathe in the contented bliss of Right Now. So, in the spirit of Perpetual More, and Randle’s fun new habit of snapping whatever limitations we dare put on his game like cheap matchsticks — what is the next offensive frontier for the Knicks’ star big man?
There will be a player suiting up for the Western Conference squad on Sunday whose exploits this season can give us a clue to Randle’s continued offensive exploration. Zion Williamson — half-man, half-asteroid — in his second NBA season, has gone full Genghis Khan with his brutalization of opponents’ pathetic attempts to keep him out of the paint. Part of the reason he’s been so unstoppable has been the New Orleans Pelicans’ willingness, as the season has gone on, to let Zion operate as a ball handler in the pick-and-roll.
Williamson, per NBA Advanced Stats, is in the 90th percentile finishing out of the league’s most popular play. On moderate but increasing volume — just 74 possessions — the Pelicans’ wrecking ball is averaging 1.11 points per possession. Pelicans head coach Stan Van Gundy’s increasingly more comfortable letting Zion pummel defenses with the ball in his hands, and it’s paying dividends. It could be instructive for another former Pels big man: Julius Randle.
Randle, on a tentative 46 possessions, is in the 89th percentile finishing as a pick-and-roll ball handler, averaging 1.09 points per possession. On the one hand, 46 possessions is nothing, a mere sprinkling of possessions, explainable in part by the sheer proportion of the Knick offense that flows through Julius. But at the same time, there are very few players that you’d confidently label as “bigs” to log more than 40 such possessions, and fewer still to be in shouting distance of The Emperor’s efficiency so far.
Of the 144 players with more than 40 P&R possessions finishing as a ball handler in the NBA this season, only Randle, Zion, Giannis Antetokounmpo (82nd percentile on 72 possessions), Pascal Siakam (63rd percentile on 73 possessions), Jerami Grant (42nd percentile on 97 possessions), some guy called LeBron James (59th percentile on 205 possessions), and Ben Simmons (35th percentile on 95 possessions) could be classified — sometimes through a squint — as bigs. The best of these defy classification altogether, and the rest are more wing than traditional bruiser.
Three areas of Randle’s game that have popped this year: his off-the-dribble shot making, his handle, and his playmaking — all pre-requisites for pick-and-roll orchestrators.
Let’s look at it from the defense’s perspective: how do you defend a Randle/Mitchell Robinson 4/5 ball screen? If you go over, you’re leaving your big to defend both Julius with a head of steam and a rolling Mitch. If you switch, you’re asking your 5-man to survive on an island with Julius, and your 4-man to keep Mitch off the glass after the shot goes up. If you go under — probably the best option — you’re ceding an open jumper to a man shooting 41% from deep on the year. And we haven’t even talked about the extra couple of steps towards the paint the other three help defenders will likely take, opening up the perimeter.
What if it’s not Mitch who’s the screener? What if it’s RJ Barrett or Immanuel Quickley in inverted actions? These would be moments pregnant with difficult defensive decisions, moments that give Randle another platform from which to leverage his vision outside of drawing help in isolation, moments that could give Quickley some easier looks at the rim to capitalize on without the burden of having to create them himself.
Randle’s 89th percentile efficiency so far has come almost entirely on jumpers, mostly mid-range invitations of time and space he has gorged on, with the occasional pull-up triple sprinkled in.
Not included in this 89th percentile scoring efficiency is the buckets he’s served up for a rolling Mitch or Nerlens Noel, on a 2-point platter, a play Julius is getting increasingly adept at finding.
Some will say it’s folly — especially this season, surely the wonkiest campaign in NBA history — to project forward the fruits of an already unexpected developmental leap. Maybe they’re right; maybe this is just one-time lightning in a temporary bottle. Equal parts pandemic oddity, the rising tide of general competence that comes with the regimented roles of a Tom Thibodeau-coached team, and a familiar fanning of a nostalgic fire with the sideline presence of assistant coach Kenny Payne, when before there was a vapid and grinning David Fizdale and not much else.
But what better way to celebrate the official stardom of our 26-year-old marvel — an unthinkable midseason outcome less than 80 days ago — than to ambitiously dispense with the limits of his next offensive adventure? Is Julius Randle: Volume Pick-and-Roll Puppet Master really any more absurd than The Big Apple Turnover: NBA All-Star?
