A look back at where Knicks’ Julius Randle lost his scoring touch last season
It is no secret that Julius Randle struggled mightily for the New York Knicks last season.
After winning the NBA’s Most Improved Player in the 2020-21 season and signing a four-year, $117 million contract that summer with the Knicks — the Kentucky product rarely replicated his level of play in 2021-22. A quick look at his most simple statistics paints an immediate picture of his digression.
All statistics are courtesy of CleaningTheGlass.
What went wrong for Knicks’ Julius Randle in 2021-22?
Pinpointing where Julius Randle lost his scoring for the Knicks
Randle went from 24.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 6 assists on 45% shooting from the field and 41% shooting from three in 2020-21 — to 20.1 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 5.1 assists on 41% shooting from the field and 31% from three.
A common critique of Randle from both Knicks fans and people around the NBA is that he takes too many mid-range jump shots.
It makes it easy to surmise that Randle’s loss in output would be found in his mid-range game — but it’s actually the opposite.
Randle shot more mid-range jump shots in his breakout season than in the most recent one.
2020-21 Frequency Of A Player’s Total Shots: Julius Randle
- Short mid-range shots: 77th Percentile
- Long mid-range shots: 99th Percentile
- All mid-range shots: 96th Percentile
2021-22 Frequency Of A Player’s Total Shots: Julius Randle
- Short mid-range shots: 52nd Percentile
- Long mid-range shots: 96th Percentile
- All mid-range shots: 88th Percentile
In 2021-22, all of Randle’s shot frequency numbers fell in his mid-range game.
The numbers give us our first insight into where Randle might have lost some of his output — he took significantly fewer short mid-range jump shots in 2021-22 than he did in 2020-21 — while still putting up a similar amount of long mid-range shots. Overall, he went from 50% of his shots being midrange jump shots to 40%.
Randle’s numbers dropping doesn’t align with him taking more mid-range jump shots, it aligns with him taking less. His accuracy from the mid-range also fell last season, though.
Over the past two seasons, Randle went from 44% to 36% from long mid-range distance and 43% to 36% for all mid-range jump shots. Simply put, he missed more of the same type of shots last year than he did the year before.
It is also worth mentioning that Randle’s shot percentage and frequency at the rim (within three feet) stayed almost exactly the same from 2021-21 to 2021-22 — meaning that’s not where his loss of scoring came from.
Randle’s greatest loss was from behind the 3-point line
It is behind the 3-point line where we see Randle’s most significant setbacks and changes in shot selection last season. The numbers are tough.
Overall, Randle went from shooting 41% to 31% from behind the line, but it’s where those misses came from that gives us the interesting part.
From non-corner threes, Randle actually stayed pretty consistent, going from 41% shooting in 2020-21 to 38% shooting in 2021-22. It’s in the corners where Randle fell off a cliff.
Randle lost a staggering 14 percentage points from the corner 3-point spots from 2020-21 to 2021-22.
He shot 43% from the corners in his Most Improved Player season, compared to just 29% in the most recent campaign. It’s a troubling discovery.
The Knicks’ highest-paid player had his largest percentage loss in shooting in the spot (corner) that is considered the easiest to shoot from and where offenses try to funnel the ball toward.
Randle didn’t fail in the mid-range last season. He failed in the corner three.
