Wonder if that sort of confidence Luke brings to players will help with Julius' shot. Seemed when he shot the ball at times he was hesitant, which caused an awkward sort of shot.
Maybe that new hire that Luke is bringing on his staff needs to threaten to punch Julius in the face if he passes up or hesitates on the the good mid range looks in the flow of the offense? Make a good first impression with him.
Warning: Real Talk (read: negativity) Coming There are some things that scare me about Julius. Mostly his shooting. His TS% was under 46 in October, December, January, and April. It was over 49 three times. He never shot better than 47.9% in a month. His double doubles are really nice, and he finished with solid assist numbers (about 2.5 in 30 minutes over his final 22 games). He was clearly a better player the second half of the season, but even post-ASB he shot only 45.3%. He has to improve quite a bit in order to take it to the next level. He's way too inefficient for a 6'9" guy.
How do those numbers stack up against other rookies? Just wondering. I know he's not a rookie, but this is the first extended run he's had in the NBA so he might as well be. I agree he needs to improve, but I also am optimistic he will do it.
His shooting is a legitimate concern, but we know and he knows what he needs to work on; midrange J and right hand. And 48.2 TS% as a rookie is pretty acceptable. Boogie Cousins in his rookie season posted 48.4 TS% without even averaging a double-double. And he's 6-11, playing much closer to the basket. Zach Randolph as a rookie? 47.9 TS%. Dirk as a rookie? 49.1 TS% With Julius' work ethic there's nothing to worry about.
I never accept that there's nothing to worry about. Randle hasn't scored like anybofbthose players. Or at least that's my thought now. I'll come back to this after class.
Yes, and none of them rebounded like Julius as rookies There's no doubt his shooting is his weakness. All I'm trying to say is that it's quite normal for rookie bigs to struggle while they adjust to the length of NBA players. To be completely honest, his defensive awareness and conditioning I worry about more. The shooting will come with time.
Yes. Part of my thought process is that he's not a defensive stalwart and he's not a good scorer. There's no real room in the league for a big rebounder who can't score or defend.
I think the worry is more that we see the potential for perennial allstar in Randall, so his shooting percentages are his biggest sticking point (defense doesn't seem to matter anymore for allstar selections). He's already proven to be an elite rebounder for his age/years in the league. Some teams would be happy with just that at the 7th pick, and one year under his belt, but we see so much more potential in him.
I'm thinking of whether he will be a good player and will help the team. He will continue to be a net negative until he improves D or shooting. I don't see him improving his defense enough to make that difference. And his shooting needs a lot of work, too. I know this is a bit of a downer, but it seems like real talk.
I don't think he's any more a net negative than any other rookie though. He's got problems that need fixing, but what rookie doesn't besides Towns? The same holes can be found in just about every prospect and what Julius does I still find value in.
Remember: he's not a rookie. I understand why we want to make him one, but the fact is that he's entering his age 22 season. I think that his rebounds really don't impact the game much, not nearly as much as his dreadful shooting and defense do. So, with that in mind, I think there were quite a few rookies with fewer problems than Randle. Towns, Zingis, WCS, RHJ, Nance, and Russell, for instance. I'm not evaluating him relative to his draft class. I'm evaluating him according to whether I think he can be a cornerstone for this team.
Oh boy. I think we're going to disagree on this quite a lot. I'd vastly vastly prefer Julius Randle on my team to Willie Cauley-Stein or Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. I'd prefer him to Nance as well. The other three you named one is a ROY candidate, one is a 7'3" phenom who I think is at this point pretty overrated and the other is our main young player. I'll take those odds. It is his rookie season, his age has no bearing on that. Plenty of rookies are 21-22 years old. He played just 14 minutes in his "real" rookie season so his experience level has a lot to do with his numbers. Like any player in their first season, his second half numbers look markedly better (so do D'Angelo's). No one here is claiming he's a cornerstone right now and no one is even disagreeing with your assessment that his defense and shooting need to improve. I think his shooting will improve though. The picture you're painting is quite gloomy, but I think the future is bright. After the All-Star game his FG% rose 4%, his TS% went from 46.9% to 50.7%, and impressively he continued to score and rebound at a similar rate to when he was less efficient. In fact his points, rebounds, and assists all improved. I think there's a great chance that he shows vast improvement with a more open system and more time under his belt. Nobody is claiming he doesn't have a lot of work in front of him, but you've downplayed his rebounding quite a bit and I don't think that's fair. He was 6th in total rebounds, 10th in rebounds per game, 10th in rebound percentage, and 4th in defensive rebound percentage. Those are elite numbers in the NBA, something nobody else in his age group is doing besides Towns and Randle is doing it better than him. Sure Towns outshines him in a lot of other ways, but Towns is also a lot taller and longer than him while having a ton of talent. I don't know about him being a cornerstone or not and what we should define that as, but if he's not a cornerstone for the team then I'm really not sure any of the young players is a cornerstone for the team. They've all got a ton of work to do and have a long road ahead of them before they become what we expect them to be.
You can keep saying he's a rookie, but that won't make it true. He had an incredibly short rookie season, but he did have the Summer League, the preseason, and all that leading up to his rookie season. Then his season ended. And his second season began. We're talking about his work in his second season. We can prefer this or that player, but unless you have some proof that your appraisals of players are more accurate than a coin toss (or, more relevantly, mine), then let's just leave out our preferences. It won't advance a case in favor of a certain player. We might be showing favoritism or misreading the player, for instance. Actually, I think you'll find many members on this board who think he is already a cornerstone. The prospects of his improving to become a cornerstone are not great. The odds that he will be able to do the things necessary to become a cornerstone are slim. Do you think he'll be higher than the third option on the team this year? Will he be better than the fourth best defender in the starting lineup this year? If he's not one of the best players on offense or defense, I can't see why we'd call him a cornerstone. His FG% rose to 45.3%, which is absolutely dreadful for a PF. He was 42nd of 59 players who were 6'9", and many of those players were SFs, playing far from the basket. Even at 45.3%, he would have been 32nd in the NBA, bypassing lots of SFs along the way. His TS% was 48th. (If we include only those who played at least 500 minutes, he is 37th of 42.) For a 6'9" PF, his shooting is very poor. We shouldn't sugarcoat it. I don't see that it's "impressive" that he continued to score and rebound at a similar rate. He already doesn't score well for a PF. If he were even worse, he'd have literally one skill worth mentioning: rebounding. As it is, he is at best a volume shooting PF who rebounds incredibly well. How have I downplayed his rebounding? Even prior to this post, I called him a big rebounder. He is. In fact, he's probably elite as a rebounder, at least when he's not on the court with another decent rebounder. I think it's undeniable that Russell is a cornerstone of the team. 15-3-3 as a 19 year-old rookie on 51.4% TS%? That's good. That's undeniably good.
i'm with rodg on this one. a big part of the development curve for young players is physical. randle was already a man when he entered the league. thus, we should expect higher introductory value and a flatter growth curve. i want him to prove me wrong, and he has the attitude to do it. but if he didn't play for the lakers, i wouldn't be bullish on his chances to be a star. his low hoop iq scares me, as does the fact that he's had many years to develop a) a right-handed layup and b) a 15 ft jumper. of course, he still has time to do some--or all--of these things. i'm rooting for him. i hope we can come back to this thread as soon as december and be like: abeer was so stupid for thinking randle was unlikely to improve much. this would make me happy.
I hope it's clear that I'm rooting for him, too! I'm rooting for everyone on our roster, and I have high hopes for the young core. That includes Brown and Zubac. I'm just trying to voice some concerns I have. There has to be a time for critical evaluation of our players, and I don't THINK I was too negative.
