You can choose to believe me or not, but I've got a small group of friends who were lucky enough to share Jerry West's box suite for our last game up in Oracle Arena. Jerry was a cool cat and hung out with my friends through most of the game (they got some stuff signed). Bad news though: he is NOT a fan of Julius Randle. He said Julius has small hands, can't shoot, and (to put it mildly) isn't learning. Now Jerry said it in much meaner terms, but he's always been that way. It's kind of funny actually, Jerry would make a point (for instance "Livingston doesn't shoot enough") and whenever his point was proven, he'd turn and stare at my buddies like "I told you so". He was also very upset and full of expletives through the first half when we were randomly sticking with the Warriors. Still a little discouraging that maybe the greatest evaluator of talent in the world isn't a fan of Julius. Jerry isn't infallible. I still have faith in Julius, but I've got to admit this revelation kind of shook me up a bit. Jerry also said that he spoke to Larry Bird and Larry was absolutely stunned that he got a 2nd Round pick for Roy Hibbert and that Larry was very close to releasing him altogether.
Here's my question without looking it up wherever ..... yeah it seems small hands for a big man or small period? Are they smaller than Kobe's? I don't know. Just seems like he should be able to control the ball if cupping it to jam on drives and not worrying about the finesse shots right now with the right hand. Stop all the double clutching and jumping into strength on defense because of his fear of going right. Not happy to hear Jerry thinks he can't shoot. What's Murphy being paid for? Put the time in Julius, I've ragged on that too. Get your a** into working more on your own time shooting practice. Like your Idol did always when it was needed.
.... so sirron .... guess your tweet for this morning's Julius thread topics could be Dunk Like A Man or Jerry West Says Randle Sucks. Please, no on the latter. Yikes!
My buddies told him that the shooting criticism was stupid, because shooting form can be corrected. Jerry shrugged it off though. You have to understand Jerry was one of the best ever and shooting was natural for him. Shooting will never be natural for Julius the same way as Jerry had it so of course he'll shrug that off. The hands thing: Julius has some small hands man. It's not the end of the world to me, but it can be a problem for a big guy inside. It can be a problem going at the rim too, but with two hands Julius shouldn't have any problem dunking. It's just something he'll have to adjust to. The bigger problem to me is Jerry questioning Julius's ability to learn and develop... Julius hasn't shown a ton of growth. He's been very good, but he hasn't grown necessarily. He's still not defending well, he's still picking up charging calls, he's still trying to dribble into coverage without knowing where to kick the ball to. Some of this is coaching, but some of it is a lack of development. Hopefully Jerry is wrong on this one.
Dude is wrong about Julius just as he was wrong about taking Gump RIGHT before AK-47. That's my self deluded rationalization and I'm sticking to it.
Nobody knows what is gonna happen. As I've said before I think it's ridiculous for people to make statements like he won't develop into anything when the kid is halfway through his rookie season. He may not be more than an Ed Davis type player or he could be the next great Lakers big man. We just don't know. It is far too early to right the guy off. He has small hands. Not the first guy to have small hands. He'll have to adjust. Julius needs to fix his shooting motion. Get rid of the hitch and get more arch. Needs to be quicker with his moves. Needs to stop with the unnecessary fadeaways. Right hand finishes. His defense. One thing he already is great at it is boxing out and getting rebounds. It's hard for a guy so raw and so inexperienced to develop when he's playing 20 minutes a game. He has to learn from mistakes, but also has to be allowed to play through him. I have the all the respect in the world for Jerry, but it's not like he's never been wrong. I've always thought it's hard for great players and without question an all time great like Jerry to be fair to some of these young players because of how great they're and those guys not being at that level so early in their careers and it's difficult for him because I know he's still a Laker at heart to see some of these young guys struggling and be patient.
For what it's worth my buddies also asked about the other two big Laker pieces: Clarkson- he said he'll be okay, but his defense needs a lot of work. Russell- he'll be fine. The Russell one was key to me because Jerry was big on him before the draft. I'm pretty sure "he'll be fine" is a glowing endorsement coming from Jerry.
Sneaky Jerry trying to plant the seeds of discontent within the Lakers fan base . That way he can trade for Julius LOL ! Genius!!!
As a sidenote, if Julius never improves, but can get 10 rebounds in 25 minutes, he will have a very long career in the NBA. He just might not be a max type of player and or building block we were thinking. That will all be made clear over time once we have a good coach, so there really is no hurry. I wish you would have asked him about Byron's coaching LOL. String of beeps
Randle is already a double double guy lol. With all the guys we've seen overpaid and with the cap going up he probably would still get a lot of money from some team.
Yeah I agree. If Julius never develops more than he does now, I still think he's a valuable piece to have.
Julius is probably the least polished out of our young 3, but that doesn't mean he can't improve. It's still early.
Least polished but still the most beast like physical potential of our young three judged against their position competition in the league. My brain just tells me someone or even himself is going to get into his head, at some point after he's had enough of struggling offensively out there, and make him stop all this inefficient, work so damn hard to get shots off down low in the half court game that he's playing now. Fix your shot Julius and get a solid finishing right hand and see how good you're going to be feeling about your game! You can pretty much shake your head at everyone, "you can't guard me" legitimately. "Just do it". Get yourself a big Nike contract.
I agree. The first two I'm not as worried about. But that third one is beginning to worry me. Granted, he is still only half a season into his career. But while Clarkson and Russell showed tremendous growth, Randle seems to be the same player he was in October.
Clarkson hasn't shown any growth or improvement defensively that's for sure. Offensively he's been efficient and effective, but he's getting torched on a nightly basis out there. He's been every bit a liability as much as Julius on that end.
Jerry is one of the best at evaluating talent. He's great. However, we took Randle in a weak draft class. He was the best available talent, IMO. Julius is comparing very favorable to his counterparts who were drafted in the same year. This is what I would say right now, and how'd I'd approach it if I were the Lakers Front Office...hire a competent coach, place all these guys in the right system, develop them and see what you have. I can't make a complete assessment or draw conclusions until I see these kids in a completely different system tailored toward their skillset This just isn't the year to do this under Scott and the KFT.
I think the difference is that Clarkson puts effort into that end. He doesn't get caught ball watching as much. His problem is that he simply doesn't know how to play defense. He's shown a willingness to learn though, and that helps. Julius has a problem of seemingly not putting forth the effort to play defense, but once again, I lay that on the feet of the coaching staff.
NOBODY , outside of Lakers fans , is big on Randle , this is the "sad truth" (whereas many said DAR will be very good to great). Maybe and hopefully Julius will prove them wrong but this is concerning
I haven't seen much of an effort by Clarkson on defense. He makes no effort on that end either. He won't fight over screens, doesn't close out to shooters, and like the rest of the guys trots back in transition. Russell is the only one of the three I've seen at least make any effort on that end.
