I was watching some of Randle’s All-NBA highlights just for nostalgia when I made an interesting observation
All of Randle’s good plays seem to come when he’s Facing The Basket. He seemed very comfortable with his ball handling last year, and would often make plays out of the triple threat position, or after dribbling on the perimeter.
This year, and also that terrible 2021-22 season, Randle seems to instead prefer Facing Away From the Basket. He’s trying to post up his defender from all the way out from sometimes the 3 point line. Instead of trying to take defenders off the dribble, he’s opting to try and overpower them with his back to the basket.
Why is this significant? When he attacks the basket by backing down his defender and banging against their bodies, he exerts significantly more energy than he would by blowing past them. He also leaves himself extremely vulnerable to double/triple teams, which unfortunately are effective against him. He also just is not a very good post scorer. He doesn’t have the length to finish over taller defenders with a jumphook, doesn’t have the post moves, and gets called for a bunch of travels when’s caught under the basket.
I think the root of this has to do with his confidence in his ball handling. If he can get that back, hopefully his playstyle changes back to what made him so good last season
Randle’s ball handling has always been weak his strength keeps ppl off him until he gets doubled. Randle would be best if he catches the ball going downhill or in any scenario where he catches the ball with some momentum.
At the end of the day Randle is only doing what Thibs asks. I fully on the side if we used Randle similar in a Draymond Green type of roll in the short roll game that would unlock his game even further and put more pressure on defenses and reduce the likely hood of turnovers
Doubt
Randle doesn’t have Draymond’s instant and high-quality decision making in the short roll. Or someone like Steph to play off of. Or Draymond’s screen-setting ability.