The New York Knicks have been playing inspired basketball in 2021. The team is currently 5th in the Eastern Conference and preparing for the 2nd half of the season. While you could point to a multitude of reasons as to how last year’s Knicks team that finished 12th in the East (Only 1.5 games from last in the East) have undergone such a drastic transformation, you can’t talk about the team’s improvement without mentioning their All-Star, Julius Randle.
Randle’s performance in 2020-21 has been the best individual season from a Knick in a long time. He’s made a significant impact on both ends of the floor, and his gaudy numbers aren’t just a personal accomplishment – They’ve led to winning basketball.
This wasn’t the case for Julius Randle last season. Randle’s first year with the Knicks was tumultuous – The team fired their head coach midseason, dealt with roster construction and rotation issues, and Randle himself simply didn’t have a positive impact on the court. Suddenly, all of these issues are in the rearview mirror, and Randle could find himself on an All-NBA team. This kind of astronomical leap, in a shortened offseason, in a player’s 7th season in the league, is rare.
Knicks: 2020-21 Julius Randle is a completely different player
19.5 points on 46% shooting to go with 9.7 rebounds per game – Those were Randle’s numbers with the Knicks in 2019-20. They don’t look bad on the surface, but it’s a classic example of “Empty stats”. Randle was often forcing bad shots, dribbling into traffic, and hampering the team’s offense.
Randle had the ball a lot last season and that hasn’t changed this year. What’s happened is that he’s stopped trying to force the issue – He’s letting the game come to him, playing to his strengths, and he’s unlocked a whole new ceiling that just about everyone didn’t believe he had.
Randle’s usage rate this year is actually slightly lower than it was last year (26.9% in 2020-21, 27.1% in 2019-20). He’s touching the ball around the same amount of times per game… It’s his decision-making that’s light years ahead of last season.
Looking at a statistic called VORP (Value over replacement player) which is one of the best all-encompassing player metrics that estimates how positive a player’s impact on the court is over the average player, Randle stands out. In 2019-20, Randle ranked 126th in the NBA in VORP, just one spot below Mavericks’ Dwight Powell. This season, Randle ranks 11th in the league in VORP, one spot below Kawhi Leonard. Who makes that kind of quantum leap in year 7???
Again, it’s not as if Randle simply has the ball more or has stepped into some kind of larger role – This statistical jump is simply from all of the hard work and dedication he’s put into improving his game.
Leading Scorers By Zone pic.twitter.com/k0bxpyIi5X
— Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) March 3, 2021
Knicks: More numbers behind Julius Randle’s Awakening
Julius Randle is a bonafide superstar on offense. Shooting, ball-handling, playmaking – There is really only a handful of frontcourt players in the entire NBA who have a skillset as diverse as Randle’s. The shooting has really stood out.
Randle shot an abysmal 27.7% from 3 last season. This year, he’s gotten that number up to a whopping 40.8% on 4.6 shots per game. He has genuinely become a knockdown shooter.
It’s not just the 3-point shooting. Tom Thibodeau’s offense will lead to plenty of mid-range/in-between shot attempts, something Randle also struggled with last year. Looking at the NBA’s tracking, we can see how players shot from specific ranges. Last season, Randle shot 15-19 foot jump shots at 36.7%. This year? He shoots them at 50.6%. Every time Randle lets one of those baseline mid-range jump shots fly, you feel confident it’s going in.
Knicks fans have gone from dreading Randle spins into double teams to demanding the ball be in his hands. This is someone who has completely flipped the narrative on who he is as a basketball player, and is now the leader of a playoff team. It’s not often you see someone in year-7 go from “Bad contract” and “Blackhole on offense” labels to becoming a potential All-NBA player (Especially because he didn’t switch teams or step into a drastically bigger role). I can’t think of any reason as to why Julius Randle isn’t the NBA’s Most Improved Player in 2020-21.