In the two weeks following his ankle surgery, Julius Randle tucked himself away.
Cooped up, bored and alone in an Orange County hotel room, Randle wanted to work on his game but couldn’t even walk — let alone run, jump or shoot. So he embraced another way to improve.
“I started to kind of (think), all right, I gotta get better,” Randle said. “I gotta find a way to get better. … And I just opened up that iPad and got to work.”
Advertisement
For a fortnight in early June, Randle turned hotel living into a study hall, scrolling through video clip after video clip of himself from the previous few seasons. Never before had he fixated on video so intently. And eventually, he noticed a theme: Despite his success, too many of his shots were needlessly difficult.
Such had always been the most common criticism of Randle’s game, even as he throttled to two All-NBA appearances over the past three seasons: He relied on inefficient long 2-pointers or settled for post-ups too far away from the basket.
The more Randle inspected the video, the clearer those trends became — and the more he realized that a man who has sniffed the upper echelon of the basketball world could vault to even higher highs if he chose to make life on the court less of a trudge.
“The biggest thing I could do is train my mind and watch film. And it was probably the best thing for me,” Randle said. “I had to slow down, slow down and just watch myself, evaluate, see how I could get better, which I never really do.”
Randle’s definition of easier shots was simple: The closer to the hoop, the better.
Today, the plan is in action.
After a frigid start to the season, Randle has morphed into a one-man stampede. He’s making a case for his third All-Star appearance in four years, and he’s doing it while living at the rim.
The new version of Randle prefers deeper post-ups, ones around the paint instead of the distant ones he once accepted with a shrug. He catches the ball on the move more, an initiative from head coach Tom Thibodeau, who for nearly a half-decade has encouraged Randle to be more active without the rock.
When a pass kicks to Randle on the perimeter, his feet already churn. He’s prioritizing transition buckets. He’s making quicker decisions when he does have the ball, which doesn’t stick to him for as long, though he still busts out the Elmer’s glue every once in a while. He’s taking more layups and dunks and is running more pick-and-rolls, which activate Randle-sized avalanches rushing downhill.
Advertisement
A season after landing on the All-NBA Third Team — by reshaping his game, chucking more 3s than ever and doing away with the dreaded long 2s — Randle has renovated his style once again. And after a sour start to the season, when he missed shots at an alarming rate coming off the surgery, he has eschewed any desire to get back to normal. Instead, he’s created a new norm.
“It’s been a steady climb from the start of the season until now,” Thibodeau said. “I know from coaching against him; the one thing you don’t want to see is Julius Randle with a head of steam coming at you downhill. To me, that’s his strength.”
These days, Thibodeau is weaponizing what was formerly the coach’s worst nightmare.
Randle took 8.3 3-pointers a game a season ago; he’s down to 5.1 in 2023-24. He’s mostly eliminated the stepbacks he leaned on so often last season, a shift that was not part of the summer plan but established as the season continued.
“I like the shots that I’m getting,” Randle said. “If I need to take those (3s), I will. But I don’t need to right now.”
The ones he’s getting today fit his definition of “easier.” More than 56 percent of Randle’s field-goal attempts are coming within 10 feet of the basket, which is by far his highest ratio since Thibodeau took over the team in 2020.
Randle went for 39 points during Saturday’s blowout of the Washington Wizards, the second time he’s fallen one short of 40 in the past week. These days, Randle’s scoring binges are ho-hum.
Since Nov. 15, he has averaged 26.7 points, 9.0 rebounds and 4.6 assists. He’s totaled at least 20 points in 24 of those 26 games. He is averaging nearly 15 drives a game, according to Second Spectrum, a massive increase from his previous standard. Since joining the Knicks five years ago, he’s hovered around nine a game.
Advertisement
The results: An average of 12 shots in the paint a night over this 26-game stretch and a success rate around the rim that is up, too.
In turn, the efficiency numbers have propelled into a new stratosphere; Randle’s 61 percent true shooting and 56 percent effective field-goal percentages since Nov. 15 would both be career highs if he posted them for a full season.
The Knicks, winners of four straight, are revving behind him, especially after their recent trade for two-way stalwart OG Anunoby.
“I think he’s done a really good job of running the floor, moving without the ball, getting downhill, generating speed on the catch,” Thibodeau said. “His strength, his power, those are all advantages that he has.”
Back in autumn, the results weren’t so sparkly.
Over the first six games of the season, Randle shot only 27 percent from the field and 23 percent from 3. But on Nov. 6, during the seventh game of the Knicks’ schedule, something clicked.
Unwelcome crowds met Randle whenever he neared the basket over the six-game, season-starting ice job. Throughout the struggles, he repeated the same analysis about how he was “seeing bodies” whenever he hit the paint. Surely, a summer without much physical activity didn’t help, either. Because of the ankle surgery, Randle could not play five-on-five until training camp began.
But in Game 7, he made an edit. Instead of sprinting through walls, as if he were auditioning to become the next Kool-Aid Man, he grabbed a 7-foot ladder.
“I saw it in-game,” Randle recalls.
What he noticed during that home match against the LA Clippers was the chance to run more pick-and-rolls, calling for screens from Mitchell Robinson and attacking the basket from there.
And they worked.
So Randle did it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
With each screen Robinson set beyond the 3-point arc, Randle noticed defenders spreading to the perimeter instead of congregating in the paint.
Advertisement
“I didn’t come into the season thinking I was gonna (run more pick-and-rolls), but running pick-and-roll, you’re getting size out of the paint,” Randle said. “I’m not really worried about getting past my man. When the five is away from the rim, it’s a little more difficult (to defend).”
Even with Robinson injured, Randle has continued to play similarly. Isaiah Hartenstein, the new starting center, screens for him. Sometimes, one of the smalls will do it, which allows Randle to throw a brawny shoulder into someone half his size.
He’s initiated 9.8 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions since Nov. 6, according to information tracked by Second Spectrum. For context, he averaged only 6.4 in 2022-23 and six the season before that.
He is pacing to eviscerate his career high.
It’s one more way Randle has created momentum toward the hoop, such as on this play from that Nov. 6 evening:
Since then, Randle has adopted these plays like never before.
“It’s really good for me,” Randle said. “I knew when I came back what the plan of attack was gonna be. And I knew in the season, it was gonna have to be a process. I was gonna have to almost treat the in-season like the offseason, train during the season on what I wanted to get better at. I knew in my mind I wanted to get better.”
So he added those pick-and-rolls. Lately, he’s gorged on transition leakouts. After he closes out on a jump shooter, he scurries the other way and receives kick-ahead passes that must make the New York Jets’ receivers jealous.
He appears more comfortable inside the Knicks’ reconstructed offense, which includes more cutting and spacing, thanks to the addition of Anunoby, a superior off-ball mover and shooter to his predecessor, RJ Barrett.
“It’s helped a lot, not only because (Anunoby) is a really good catch-and-shoot guy but just his understanding on spacing, timing, when to cut, when to flash to the ball, all different types of things,” Randle said. “He just has a good feel for where to be and when.”
Advertisement
For months, Randle’s catches in the post have come deeper than they did before, often with at least one foot in the paint. His passing once he receives the basketball, as detailed last month, has hit new levels. Randle has never reacted to double-teams this quickly.
“I just know what I wanna get to on the floor. I know my reads,” he said. “But honestly, I can still get a lot better.”
He’s adjusting from night to night.
In early December, he sliced up the Toronto Raptors while backing down top-notch defenders (including the man who is now his newest teammate, Anunoby) and turning over his left shoulder to drop in short fallaways. If a Toronto defender extended an arm, Randle would snap his hands up in an instant to draw the foul. If helpers scampered in his direction, he kicked out to 3-point shooters.
When the Knicks played Toronto a week and a half later, he carved out space on the same side of the floor but deked whoever was behind him, turning over his right shoulder this time and lofting in fadeaway floaters. The Raptors didn’t double-team Randle nearly as often on this evening — until they realized Randle was so hot that they had no other choice. Once second defenders flocked to him, Randle chiseled the defense, once again spraying to shooters.
He dominated both games, finishing the first only one assist shy of a triple-double and the second with an efficient 34 points, but he dominated them in different ways.
“The key to having longevity in this game is adaptability and being able to adjust,” Randle said. “I’ve always been able to adjust as my career has gone on. But now, I think I’m just more sure of who I am as a player. It’s all kinda coming together for me at this point in my career.”
Adaptability is becoming part of Randle’s identity.
He reached his first All-NBA team in 2020-21 when he roasted from the midrange and made a higher percentage of his 3s than ever.
Advertisement
After a down season in 2021-22, he returned a changed man, reaching All-NBA heights once again, even though he flourished differently. No longer was Randle the Knicks’ lead initiator, a job that instead belonged to the group’s new point guard, Jalen Brunson.
So Randle legislated the long 2s out of his game. At the behest of Thibodeau, he took more 3s than ever, many of them clean, spot-up looks. The strategy was as much about the team’s offense as it was about Randle’s. The Knicks needed spacing, and Randle firing up deep balls aplenty meant defenders couldn’t leave him wide open.
Randle’s percentages dropped from where they lived during his first All-NBA season, but the efficiency numbers were improved just because of the shot profile.
Today, Randle has returned to All-Star status. And once again, he’s arrived via another unmarked route.
(Photo of Julius Randle: Al Bello / Getty Images)
