Julius Randle Discussion: Beast, Ox, Monster, Lotus Flower

BTW I said 20/12 in summer league

Whether he'd get enough minutes to post those numbers is another question, but the summer league is basically the D-league in terms of competition. If Jabari Brown can average 24.4 pts in the D-league, I'd expect Randle to be an unstoppable BEAST in summer league.

 

Summer league is meaningless in reality. How many summer league "stars" flop in the NBA? How many of our summer league beasts have failed?

Randle will need a season or two to make the transition. Expectations should reflect that. If he averaged 12 and 7 I'd be happy. I think he will find the advantages he had in college will be a lot harder to find in the NBA.

The larger question with him is what happens if we get LMA. He should be a PF at his age and I just don't see Randle at SF.

 

^ Never said his summer league production will translate to the regular season.

 

i actually don't think that the advantages randle had in college will change much. he's still either quicker or stronger and more aggressive than most of his opponents.

I expect him to put up double figures in scoring this year, plus 6 boards. I'm of course assuming that he plays 25mpg+.

edit: and summer league is generally a poor projection. if someone looks absolutely overmatched there, it's diagnostic, but that's not common. otherwise, crapshoot. it's so disorganized and messy.

 

Maybe



after pain of losing Okafor?

 

I think just the opposite. He's shorter and about average wt (with the 20lb reported loss) for a NBA PF. Athletically he's better than some but less than others. The difference is that in college he had a significant athletic advantage and used it. Now he will not on most nights and will have to use other skills that come from playing over time. I think he will struggle to score consistently.

 

I think Randle will average at least 16/7 this season. I'm basing this off his last two preseason games against Portland and Sacramento. He averaged 14.5 pts and 8.5 reb 27 min in those two games. I expect to him to have much better conditioning and a better jumpshot to start this year.

 

I can understand thinking that many of us are overrating him or expecting more than he can deliver. Somewhat. But this glass definitely half empty assessment of his potential I don't get at all. ALL reports from camp with his now improved conditioning, improved shooting skills they seem to be going crazy over and non stop work efforts to excel, logically would seem to indicate that what we see below in this clip from last year will be improved by pre-season this year. This stuff was against NBA guys, some quite good, not college kids. Sure, like most players he will have some weaknesses his (rookie season) at just 20 years old, based on these year old clips, but how many has he already strengthened? We're going to be able to see really soon in summer league.

 

To piggyback off your post, here is some footage of his jumper in a preseason game last year.



Quite impressive for a PF who's ceiling was supposed to be Zach Randolph.
And everyone is saying his jumpshot has improved ALOT.

 

I hope you guys are right. I don't see it yet. What I see is a guy between positions still developing a lot of the skills needed to play in this league. I'm a show me guy and as of yet he's had 14 minutes in the NBA. The rest of this is conjecture. I feel the same way about Russell as well. He's a little better matched for his position than Randle is but he's still got to do a lot of growing to make it as the new face of the franchise. Is he Steve Francis or Curry? Only time will tell.

 

And after the past two seasons of misery with no hope at all won't it be great to watch develop!?