The last 15 minutes of a Minnesota Timberwolves practice may seem mundane.
Players shout and squeak their shoes as they finish up their drills. After practice ends, some players head off to the locker room. Others go for treatment for nagging injuries, and a couple wait around to talk to the press. A select few stay after to run drills with the coaching staff and work on specific aspects of their game.
Julius Randle almost always stays late after practice.
Some days, it’s to run shooting drills with Joe Ingles and Luka Garza:
But Randle often works alone with the coaching staff on his shooting.
Sometimes, it’s from the mid-range:
Or from distance:
The most remarkable thing about watching Randle in drills is how rarely he misses. He constantly makes reset threes, mid-range, and free throws. He rarely misses in shooting drills. Randle nearly makes every shot, even when Ingles does his best to win the mental game.
“Joe, he can’t beat me in shooting stuff,” said Randle. “So his only hope is to talk trash and mentally try to get in my head… but that doesn’t really work.”
Randle came to the Wolves as the biggest name in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade. Therefore, people expected him to fill some of the offensive void left by Towns. Randle has done just that; his extra practice has carried over to the games. Randle is shooting 40.9% from three, his best percentage since 2020-21.
Randle’s three-point shooting compliments his career-best 58.6% on two-point attempts. Those two percentages, combined with his 80.4% free throw percentage, have given him a career-best 59.4% effective field goal percentage. Randle’s true shooting of 63.8% also marks a career-high. His true shooting number is so impressive it surpasses Towns’ 62.4% career average.
Offensively, Randle has been almost a seamless fit shooting the ball. His ability to bully down low and get tough shots at the rim has complemented Minnesota’s shooting.
Randle’s ability to work in space and go to drives or his turnaround hook shots has been impressive, as is his ability to run a big-to-big pick-and-roll with Rudy Gobert. He’s also shooting at an elite level from three, and Randle has been pretty close to being the ideal Towns replacement.
Oddly, despite his shooting success, Randle still should have more to offer offensively. His 33.5 minutes per game marks his lowest since 2019-20. His 14.3 shots per game also mark his lowest since 2017-18, his final season with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Considering how well he is shooting and scoring, it would be fair to assume Randle should get more shots as he continues to gel with the offense. However, he’s shooting fewer times per game than his final two seasons with the New York Knicks.
Rebounds have also been a curiosity for Randle this season. He’s averaging a career-low 6.7 rebounds per game. That’s a full 1.3 rebounds less than his previous career low of 8.0 in 2017-18.
While it would seem that Gobert is picking up the rebounding slack, that would be wrong. Gobert’s rebounding percentage and total rebounds have dropped this season. Randle has also seen the latter happen. His defensive rebounding percentage has fallen by 6.7% from last season.
That means slightly more than one of every 20 rebounds goes elsewhere per game. A game typically has 40+ rebounds, so this drop alone could be the difference. With rebound percentages, there is a silver lining. The Wolves are still picking up the rebounding slack.
However, it’s concerning that the percentage has dropped to that extent. It suggests there is room for Randle to grow in rebounding the ball, especially given Gobert’s percentage has also dropped. The most obvious answer is likely that Randle needs to become more accustomed to his new teammates.
Randle could also experience the same growth defensively. He’s posting a defensive rating of 114.1, just 0.3 points behind his rating of 113.8 with the Knicks last season. That rating is based on the team’s performance and shows that Randle is playing good defense on the surface.
But, like with rebounds, Randle has room to grow, especially in his ability to defend shots. Randle allows players to shoot 44.6% against him from the field and 34.8% from three, reflecting that he is playing average to good defense. Upon closer inspection, Randle spends 51.3% of the time matched against forwards, which is his natural position. In that time, he has allowed them to shoot a blistering 54.5% from the field and 38.5% from three.
He mostly plays with Gobert when he’s matched up against forwards. Therefore, some of Randle’s percentage shift is due to trying to gel with new teammates again.
Randle defends much better against guards and centers, primarily due to switches, scrambles, or transitions. When he gets beat defensively, it is much more often in the set defense when it appears he over-helps or doesn’t quite know where his teammates are on the court. All of this should improve immensely with more time together.
Randle works on his game whenever he can, whether in drills after practice or live games, in which he can better gel with his new team. Randle has shown that the work on his shooting has paid dividends. The Wolves should expect the same work in building chemistry to also pay off.
