The Minnesota Timberwolves are surging up the Western Conference standings after the All-Star break for a second consecutive year.
Last season, the Wolves were reeling at 32-29, in 10th place in the West, heading into March, with the possibility of missing the playoffs altogether. Minnesota finished 17-4 down the stretch, snuck into the sixth seed to avoid the play-in tournament, and set up playoff series victories over the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors.
The late-season swell coincided with Julius Randle’s return from a groin injury that forced him to miss the entire month of February. Randle played good, efficient basketball in the run-up to the playoffs. He averaged 18.2 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game on 52.3/39.8/79.1 shooting splits in the last 21 games of the season.
He rode that momentum into the first strong playoff showing of his career and started off his 12th season playing some of the best basketball of his life. Before the All-Star Game, Randle was averaging 22.3 points per game, seven rebounds, and 5.4 assists while Minnesota sat in sixth place in the congested West at 34-22. Since the break, the Wolves are 5–1 and percentage points behind the Houston Rockets for third place in the West standings with a little over a month left in the regular season.
But that run has come despite a rough patch from Randle.
Since his 41-point outburst in a win against Portland before the break, Randle is averaging 14.2 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 3.2 turnovers over his last six games. He’s shooting a miserable 38 percent from the field and 3-19 (15.8 percent) from three over that span. He may have flipped a switch in the second half against the Memphis Grizzlies as he bullied his way to 23 points and 11 rebounds. However, the three-time All-Star still committed five costly turnovers and missed all four of his three-point attempts.
A typically confident player and good playmaker for a 6’9”, 250-pound power forward, Julius Randle looks lost on both sides of the court. He’s still playing his usual brand of bully ball on offense. But he’s making the wrong decision seemingly every time down the court. If he’s not spinning into a double team, dribbling into the heart of the defense, or throwing the ball away because of a miscommunication with a teammate, he’s clanking everything from behind the three-point line and even missing his patented turnaround free-throw jumper.
You could write it off as just a normal six-game slump that every star player goes through if it were just missing a few shots here and there and throwing the ball into the third row a few times per game. But Randle’s lack of effort on the defensive end should be a major concern for every Wolves fan hoping they improve on two consecutive trips to the Western Conference Finals. It’s been an issue all season and on and off throughout his career, but his effort since the All-Star break is nonexistent.
In 2026, Randle’s defense resembles me trying to put a harness on my dog to go out for a walk. He rarely gets down in a proper stance, and when he does, there’s little lateral movement or effort to keep ballhandlers from an easy bucket. Opposing teams’ eyes widen when they see Julius Randle as the low man help because they know that help ain’t coming. Minnesota’s defense is 12th in the NBA since the All-Star break, compared to seventh before the week off.
Julius Randle isn’t the only Wolves player struggling down the stretch. Naz Reid is shooting 31.8 percent from three and 42.9 percent from the free-throw line since the break. Jaylen Clark, Joan Beringer, and Terrence Shannon Jr. are essentially out of the rotation as the playoffs near. And nobody but Anthony Edwards and Donte DiVincenzo can hit a three to save their lives.
But Randle’s mistakes are the loudest and most destructive.
Since coming to Minnesota in the Karl-Anthony Towns trade, Julius Randle has more than pulled his weight as Ant’s sidekick. He crushed the Lakers and the Warriors in the first and second rounds of last year’s playoffs before succumbing to the Oklahoma City Thunder buzzsaw.
It could be a physical wall Randle is hitting five months into the season. He’s played in all 62 games this season and is leading the Timberwolves in minutes played, second in minutes per game, and second in usage rate. It might just be as simple as giving Randle a day off here or there in March to supercharge him for a two-and-a-half-month playoff run.
There’s still time for Randle to get back to his Galactus planet-consuming brand of basketball before the playoffs. The Wovles have 20 games left to shore up home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. They have the second-hardest remaining strength of schedule, behind the Denver Nuggets, with games against the Thunder, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics, and Lakers.
The Timberwolves can weather Julius Randle’s struggles on a game-to-game basis. However, if they want to go to the finals for the first time in franchise history, Randle will need to be playing the best basketball of his life to give the Wolves the extra lift they expected when they traded for him.
