Julius Randle isn’t having the best start to life on the Minnesota Timberwolves after joining the franchise this summer from the New York Knicks. Randle is an impactful starting power forward for the franchise, but he’s struggling to adjust to the Wolves play-style and it’s evident to fans who go through the film.
One fan made a compilation of Randle’s poor moments in the Wolves’ 111-117 loss to the Houston Rockets, highlighting how out-of-sync Randle looks on the team.
In the first play, Randle gets mixed by the Rockets’ pick-and-roll, not rotating onto Fred VanVleet who blew past the Wolves’ defense for an easy layup. The second play sees Randle carelessly turn the ball over after a late bail-out pass in the post while being doubled. The third play was relatively harmless, as Randle failed to corral a pass that fell into Alperen Sengun‘s hands.
He once again failed to pass out of the post in the fourth play, with the added touch that Naz Reid managed to save the possession but Randle let the recovered ball roll between his legs for the turnover. Randle would also make other mistakes such as bad passes and low-IQ shots like driving into double-teams just to have his shot stuffed by Sengun.
Anthony Edwards co-star Julius Randle with some interesting plays during the Timberwolves previous loss to the Rockets
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Randle is averaging 21.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.1 assists this season, shooting 50.4% from the field and 34.5% from three. While his counting stats still look solid, he doesn’t look comfortable within the flow of the Wolves offense just yet. He’s not making the instinctive decisions high-usage players need to make after reading plays and defenses.
He’s playing reactionary basketball, which caused him to be half a step behind his opponents who have managed to limit his impact on the Wolves just enough for the franchise to go 2-7 over their last nine games while losing the last four in a row. Everyone will hope Randle fits in throughout the season, but there have been plenty of concerning moments already in the last two months.
Recently, Randle had a very public disagreement with Rudy Gobert during a loss to the Toronto Raptors, as Randle failed to spot an open pass to Gobert during a clutch possession, prompting the French center to get upset. Randle would pout on the final possession of the game, awkwardly pinging the ball to a fully-guarded Gobert passive aggressively because Gobert yelled at him on the court for the previous play.
Randle has also caught a lot of flack for his poor defensive effort since joining the Timberwolves, being yelled at on the court by Timberwolves assistant Pablo Prigioni for giving up an easy layup because of lazy defense. He’s been unengaged defensively, giving up points due to referee arguments and even being name-dropped as the weak link in the Wolves defense after opening night by Rui Hachimura.
He’ll have to improve his play as the Timberwolves blew a 12-point fourth-quarter lead to the Sacramento Kings last night, prompting Anthony Edwards to slam his own teammates. While he didn’t name anyone, he called the players on the franchise ‘soft’ and demanded better effort, especially defensively from everyone.
The Randle and Donte DiVincenzo acquisition in exchange for Karl-Anthony Towns hasn’t worked out on the court for Minnesota, who’s already shopping DiVincenzo on the trade market. While there have been no trade rumors surrounding Randle, the Wolves might look to move off him if he continues playing the way he is.
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