New York Knicks Top-5 Shooters: #5 Julius Randle
This is already hurting my soul. Far and away the team’s best player, an All-NBA scoring machine who is coming off of a season where he shot 41.1% from 3 on 5.5 attempts per game and yet, he’s just the 5th best shooter on the team?
This was the best shooting season of Julius Randle’s career. It felt like anytime he let it fly from either the corner or the elbow 3, you could be confident it was going in.
Randle is more of a freak athlete than he’s given credit for. He may not be a leaper, but at his size and weight, his ability to move and have tremendous twitch with the ball in his hands allows him to consistently create space to score.
He uses that strength/quickness blend as a shooter as well. Randle is more than just a catch-and-shooter.
Randle, historically, is a tremendous finisher at the rim, so defenses will try to sag into the paint to defend him. He’s incorporated plenty of quick rip-throughs, shimmies, step-backs into his game and they’ve all worked as moves that allow him to hit tough mid-range and 3-point shots off the dribble.
Randle’s hot 3-point shooting didn’t continue into the playoffs where he shot just 33.3% from deep.
Julius Randle shot 27.7% from 3 just 2 seasons ago. His improvement this regular season was remarkable.
It’s a testament to the New York Knicks coaching staff who seemed to have helped the entire roster with their shooting form and consistency.
Julius Randle is just getting started in this next step of his career. His 3-point shooting numbers may drop a bit into the sub-40% range, but make no mistake, he’s still a fantastic shooter and 3-level scorer.