It is possible, but one thing kind of proves it’s not just that. He may be coming in off the bench and playing against inferior competition in the 2nd quarter, but he’s also finishing games and playing against other team’s best players/closers in the 4th. He’s shutting some the league’s best players down at the rim and on the perimeter from time to time in the 4th. He’s scoring at will repeatedly on the league’s best big men in the 4th. I’m wary as anyone about properly evaluating a player in a contract year, making sure if you want to keep them you don’t overpay, but what he’s doing in 4th quarters for us can’t be understated. He’s not only having success against 2nd stringers, he is bringing it against almost everyone put in front of him (he still struggles a little with taller and much longer players).
It all comes down to whether or not we can get rid of Deng. If we can get rid of Deng by attaching maybe Nance/Zubac/unprotected 1st to him, then all bets are off and I'm keeping Randle here. Having him be our super 6th man would be amazing and would give us a dimension no other team really has. We could do something that @abeer3 has talked about and use Jordan Clarkson to acquire a long-term, but low money contract. Something like Clarkson to Dallas for Barea/McRoberts works. McRoberts expires this summer. Barea's deal is only 3.7 million next year. We could roll into the summer with: Ball (7.5)/Barea (3.7) _______/Hart (1.7) Ingram (5.8)/______ _______/Kuzma (1.7) _______/Randle (12.5)/Bryant (1.4) After Cap Holds we're at 37.8 million. That leaves 63.2 million to spend on LeBron/George/Cousins. It's basically the perfect amount to add LeBron and one of the other guys. If we added George/Cousins, we'd have a few million left over (5ish) to spend on probably another big.
He was pretty terrible today. He was routinely beat to loose balls that he usually gets, failed to make plays defensively down the stretch, and wasn't very effective with the ball. That being said, this loss was not on him at all. He worked about as hard as he could.
yeah, i think he started the 4th quarter with three consecutive low iq plays, and i was like: there he is. let's hope it's a blip. i did think the refs weren't giving him a break. he DID push off on that one play with the right arm, but the play where beasley body blocked him was a clear loose ball foul. it happened right in front of the ref. it was a hometown call, no doubt. then they just started whistling him for all contact and luke had to pull him.
I thought he fended off with his right, but there was a TON of contact on that play and it easily could have been a no-call or a defensive foul as well. What bothered me was that the back ref called it when he didn't even have a clear shot of Julius's arm at that angle. If someone is going to make that call, it needs to be the ref who can actually see it. That's what Julius was telling the ref. Then later on that quarter, the ref who Julius was giving a hard time to purposely didn't call the foul on Beasley. Petty bull****.
We get it. You do. This is who he is. One game he’s fired up to play, the next he’s not even engaged. We’ve seen this for what, 3 seasons now? Luke is trying everything to motivate the guy and teach him the basics. Yeah the kid is talented, but he lacks the simple basketball knowledge to back it up.
I thought Randle was really good until the 4th. He had a bad game to close, it happens, he’s been so reliable to close most games I let this one slide.
He's been our most consistent player all season long, both in terms of effort and production. This really isn't even debatable. One bad quarter and he's not even engaged? That makes everyone else on our team, starting from Ball and Ingram, never engaged. You're seeing what you want to see which is revealing of what you think about Randle.
That's a fair criticism. He's rebounding at a rate of 13.3 boards per 48 minutes, which makes him the 15th best rebounder at his position (out of 56 PF's) So while he's still an above average rebounder, he should be Top 5, given his talent imo. I think it has to do with him playing further away from the basket both on defense (switching on guards/wings) and offense (playmaking)
He does. Only this game that he was below norm, and Beasley probably did not indulge with his usual amount of pot pre game
Not a good game to not show up to play, especially with the boss Magic is watching you closely at court-side.
