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One of my favorite players to analytically pick apart this season has been Julius Randle. It seemed that most people were in accordance that he was largely overrated, but then Kentucky made a tournament run that confounded everything and inspired hope for his future. Personally, I am not feeling too badly about my earlier synopsis and feel that all of my central hypotheses still hold. I would absolutely not consider him in the lottery, so I may as well follow up on why I refuse to budge on my anti-Randle stance.
A common trend among people who take exception to my ranking of Julius Randle as a non-lottery pick is that they are not convinced that his defense will invariably plague him throughout his NBA career. And it makes sense that some people would be skeptical, as defense is exceptionally difficult to pinpoint either statistically or by casually watching. And even if they acknowledge that he may have been sub-par as a freshman, that is not enough to convince most that he will necessarily be bad in his NBA prime. So how likely is he to mitigate this wart such that it is no longer debilitating?
His easiest out is simply that his defense is an overstated issue. But all signs point in the direction of it not being so. His steal and block rates are exceptionally weak for a lottery PF prospect. Also his team was not great defensively considering the size and athleticism they boasted, and they were not better with Randle on the floor (or so I have heard and instantly believed. Anybody know where to find UK on/off splits?). And, you can watch for yourself as Randle makes a gigantic pile of mistakes in a single game. He often has no clue what is going on and stands there confused as his assignment waltzes right past him. That lack of mental acuity doesn’t strike me as something that is likely to go away, nor will it be mitigated with marginal improvement. On some plays he was so slow to react that it seems Tennessee could have scored twice before he figured out what was going on. While not every game is as rife with mistakes as this one, similar errors did persist throughout the season and tournament. When the eye test, individual stats, and team level performance all strongly suggest that he is bad at defense, the most Bayesian conclusion is that he is almost certainly bad at defense.
So now that we all agree he is bad defensively, how likely is he to elevate his instincts to a more competent level? His main concern is that he is too slow to discern the offensive play unfolding before his eyes and sometimes fails to react until the ball is going through the net. I believe this deficiency heavily prices into his low steal rate, as players often generate steals by anticipating what will happen in advance. Layne Vashro made an excellent post about evaluating potential, and his statistical analysis on the growth of steal, block, and rebound rates is grim:
These traits are something a player either has or does not have. Do not expect a prospect who cannot block, steal, or board to figure out how once he enters the NBA (not that this never happens of course). Instead, these traits should be viewed as a part of the baseline a player has to work from, much as height and leaping ability are popularly understood.
If we roll with the narrative that steals correlate with defensive awareness and instincts, Randle will almost certainly always have bad instincts. After all, it doesn’t make sense that a player may drastically improve his anticipation and awareness without seeing a bump in steal rate. If increases in steal rate are outlier events, it logically follows that big increases in anticipation and instincts should be as well. This would doom Randle defensively– if defensive instincts are barely more improvable than height or athleticism, then he is a stone cold lock to be a liability as an NBA player.
But to leave some margin for error: let’s be open minded and say that defensive instincts are as easily improved as the most readily improved skill: shooting (at least I assume this is the case, if there is evidence to the contrary I would appreciate hearing about it). Everybody makes a big deal about Marcus Smart’s shooting ability being a damper on his draft stock, but he isn’t even the worst shooter among guards in the draft. He made 30% of his 3’s and 75% of his FT’s in college. Imagine instead that he made 25% of 3’s and 50% of FT’s– would anybody still want to draft him in the lottery? It would likely be perceived as an insurmountable wart that distracts from every good aspect Smart brings to the table. While it is impossible to equate Randle’s defensive badness to shooting percentages, he is the worst defensive player among big man prospects in the draft. Even in the most impossibly optimistic scenario that defensive instincts can improve as much as shooting, Randle’s defense should still be perceived as an exceptionally costly wart. This perception only fails to be widespread because of visibility bias. When casual fans watch a game, they notice every missed or made shot and normally none of the defensive lapses. Further, this enables season by season tracking of shooting percentages that are not available for defensive acumen.
Consider:
1) Julius Randle’s defense is worse relative to his peers than Marcus Smart’s shooting
2) Shooting is likely more readily improvable than defense, and possibly by a large margin
3) In the instance that neither player drastically improves their wart, Smart has a much rosier upside comparison among a player who shares the wart with similar strengths (Dwyane Wade) than Randle (Luis Scola, David Lee).
All of the concern for Smart’s shot should apply tenfold to Randle’s defense.
As an interesting aside, concern for Randle’s shot should also be great than the concern for Smart’s shot. Floor spacing is quickly being recognizing as valuable. And with analytics becoming increasingly widespread in the NBA, it is worth pondering whether the league is moving in a direction such that players who cannot either hit 3’s or play defense will be coveted at all in the future. Randle’s shot is perceived as a positive as he hit 70.6% of his FT’s, and he has some potential to develop a 3 point shot in spite of only making 3/18 as a freshman. While the bar is lower for acceptable big man shooting, Smart has his defense and PG skills to fall back on and does have superior shooting splits to Randle. If Randle neither steps up his defense in a big way nor becomes a reliable 3 point shooter, it’s difficult to see him ever becoming an impact player in the NBA.
As I mentioned earlier, I could envision Randle becoming David Lee level good. This may sound alright to some people, but to me it is a horrific upside scenario that does not merit 1st round consideration. I do not think David Lee is a particularly useful NBA player because he doesn’t space the floor, and his offensive and rebounding value is consequently outweighed by his poor defense. If Lee is a prospect’s best case scenario, that prospect should be worth little.
There are undeniably a number of positive traits that Randle brings to the table. He is strong, mobile, great at rebounding, and talented at converting difficult shots in the paint. His strength enables him to get to the line where he is solid at making his free throws, and he also has some semblance of handling and passing to work with. Further he appears to be competitive, hard working, and coachable. But because he spectacularly fails at the most high leverage aspect of his performance (defense), this puts a massive damper on his upside. He also has uncertainty regarding the second highest leverage aspect of his value (3 point shooting) that further inhibits his value. These warts are going to be often overlooked because one is not readily visible, and the other is not yet accepted as common NBA wisdom. But they drown out all of the positive qualities he brings to the table simply because none of his good traits are nearly as valuable as defense or spacing.
Hopefully this sheds some clarity on why I remain bearish on Randle in spite of his late season improvement and solid tourney showing. I do believe he carries his fair share of bust risk, but I do not necessarily believe he is a lock bust. The greater concern is that when his successful outcomes still are not that appealing, as he may post good stats as an NBA player without aiding his team too much in the W column. If he ever averages something like 18 points and 10 rebounds with an 18 PER, I’d hope that nobody trolls me over my ranking of him. So long as he keeps missing rotations on defense, I would never regret passing on him in the draft.
Dean On Draft 
To a similar point, I sometimes wonder what % of the people who think Andrew Wiggins will oh-so-easily be able to overcome his ball-handling woes in the NBA have ever actually dribbled a basketball.
Yup, they are both in the same vein. Some reactions to my video of Wiggins’ bad rim finishing is that it appears to be fixable, but “fixable” is such a misleading word.
I think the other aspect that benefits both Randle + Wiggins perceptions is a bias toward assuming the top top RSCI guys are more likely to have their warts fixed than others. This often isn’t the case.
Randle’s numbers are better as a freshman than David Lee as a senior–not that Randle being better than Lee proves much. I am not a Kentucky fan, but watched them play a lot. Randle will never be a great defender, but his defense was dramatically improved in last 15 games. He also dramatically reduced his turnovers while being able to finally show passing skills as players began to know where they were going. It is really dangerous to overvalue statistics with Kentucky players given how unique the circumstance are for how Calipari builds a team. I was down on Randle most of the year, but he flashed what he is capable of in last 10 games. David West is a better model for him.
It doesn’t matter if Randle’s defense improved if it is still awful. Clearing a bar that has been already set impossibly low is not worth much.
And also I am skeptical of exactly how much it improved. Kentucky’s team schedule adjusted d-rtg actually dropped during their tournament run and Randle didn’t stop making mistakes. He occasionally had some good defensive possessions where he was dialed in, but he did so all season.
As long as he remains prone to glaring mistakes his overall value is going to be capped. I think he has potential to be fine man to man, but that isn’t worth much if he hemorrhages points by never knowing where he is supposed to be within the team scheme.
Exactly. Funny how two of guys people cite as proof that these skills can be developed are Westbrook and George, famously low RSCI guys.
Personally, I’m much higher on Randle because I don’t think many prospects will be better than him.
Now, that doesn’t mean he’s gonna be a HOFer, but I do think that not many others in the draft will have better careers than him (I’d put the probability of 10 players being better than him at 15%…..5 players at 50%).
However, there is one thing I think you need to take into consideration. I don’t think Calipari is a good coach. We know how important player development is. I’m personally of the belief that Cal is just an average coach, but a great recruiter.
So if Randle goes to a team with a solid coach (and history of player development), I think he’ll do much better than you’re projecting him to do. However, if he goes to a shitty team that has done a bad job in the past (like the Jazz or Kings for example who seem to constantly do not so well with lottery picks), I think his career outlook will fall closer to what you’re projection.
(Side note: Personally, how you’re bearish on Randle, I am bearish on Gordon…I’m hesitating at putting him in my top-10).
(Posted this once, not sure it went through, so my bad on the double post if both go through)
Personally, I’m much higher on Randle because I don’t think many prospects will be better than him.
Now, that doesn’t mean he’s gonna be a HOFer, but I do think that not many others in the draft will have better careers than him (I’d put the probability of 10 players being better than him at 15%…..5 players at 50%).
However, there is one thing I think you need to take into consideration. I don’t think Calipari is a good coach. We know how important player development is. I’m personally of the belief that Cal is just an average coach, but a great recruiter.
So if Randle goes to a team with a solid coach (and history of player development), I think he’ll do much better than you’re projecting him to do. However, if he goes to a shitty team that has done a bad job in the past (like the Jazz or Kings for example who seem to constantly do not so well with lottery picks), I think his career outlook will fall closer to what you’re projection.
(Side note: Personally, how you’re bearish on Randle, I am bearish on Gordon…I’m hesitating at putting him in my top-10).
I think Calipari is an overrated coach, but it’s important to bear in mind that almost all of these prospects are playing for bad coaches. I’m not a Cal fan in the least, but you can do significantly worse. Smart, Ennis, and Vonleh all had worse coaches.
I’m a firm believer in the power of good coaching, but great coaching isn’t a panacea for all player flaws. A coach can’t prevent Randle from spacing out on D, for instance.
Look at the Calipari players who became good pros: Wall, Brow, Terrence Jones– they all played awesomely at UK for teams that were much better defensively. Bledsoe developed his skill a ton since entering the league, but as a freshman he was good defensively as UK was the 5th best defensive team in the country and he had a good steal rate.
If there was something about Calipari that masks Randles potentials, it should have manifested in prior prospects.
I get how you’d be bearish on Gordon. I was low on him for a while and I still think his shot and tweener issues are so significant. But man is he good at everything outside of shooting, and he’s so young. If he learns to hit the corner 3 he’s going to be a valuable player, and he might be alright even if not.
Honestly, Brow and Jones have played better than I (and many others) thought in the NBA.
And Wall was already so good in college, I don’t think you can attribute any of his great play to Cal.
While I think your point re: bad coaches/elite prospects is fair, I don’t think you can lump everybody into that. Some players will develop better than others despite the coaching. Some need the coaching more. And I think Randle (and side note: James young) can fall into that category.
So I think this is a negative on Cal. People were projecting Brow to be like Camby (and only in his 2nd year, people are calling him the 3rd best player in the NBA).
Jones? Went 18th when he should’ve probably been a lottery pick easy.
I’m not trying to say Randle has no deficiencies. He does.
All I’m saying is that I think you have to take the ‘Cal Factor’ into more consideration and that he is more ‘fixable’ than you are projecting (due to the Cal Factor).
Anyway, I guess only time will tell!
Check out VJL’s statistical modeling– he had Brow as the best prospect of the past 30 years based on his UK stats. Brow was only underrated because he didn’t have the label of “next big thing,” he was just a standard #1 pick. He was a BEAST in college and is going to become one of the all-time greats in the NBA.
I saw him in person 3 times. I have never seen a big man be so smooth with ball in his hands even in warmups (not that it means a whole lot). He is going to be a monster on the offensive end and I blasted his defense all year. The last 10-12 games there were times that I could not believe I was watching the same guy. The emergence of the whole team was a big factor. We just disagree on his progress. He works his tail off and should work into a capable defender. A great example is Blake Griffin. He was terrible in college defensively and worse entering league. Zero instincts. He is a good defender now because he put the work in. If Randle puts the work in, he will be at least average on that end. If not–well no one is good without putting in the work. Randle won me over.
Blake had double the steal rate and comfortably more blocks. There’s no way he was as lapse-y as Randle. If he had zero instincts Randle’s instincts are sub-zero.
Randle being smooth with the ball in warmups means zero because his skills are not in question. Can he play D, can he space the floor, can he make good, quick decisions in traffic? Those are the questions that will make or break him and I don’t think the answer to any of them is a confident yes.
He also strikes me as a worker which is why it wouldn’t surprise me if he becomes something. But ability to play team D + accrue steals + block aren’t things that are necessarily fixable with work.
Julius Randle is Elton Brand, David Lee or David West at the next level and that isn’t a bad thing. He appears to be a little undersize like the guys I mention and they all have career long defensive problems against tall talented power forwards.
Elton Brand and David West aren’t atrocious on defense and Randle won’t be that good unless he’s not either.
You severely overrate that he is 19–and it really matters when a guy improves at that age because it projects that he will continue to do so. All of your arguments are statistical and Kentucky completely changed what they do with him. Given UK’s season, the statistics are virtually useless. Young is the only player that remotely resembled in March what he was in December and even he was much better. Again, not a UK fan and personally have zero use for Andrew Harrison and think Cauley-Stein is way overvalued. I have watched them live multiple times in last 4 years and Young and Randle both are on the level of anyone they have had other than Davis–whose effort and talent are freakish.
Not all of my arguments are statistical…I made an entire video to show my qualitative perceptions of him from watching him. I watched lots of UK this year, which is largely why I’m so confident commenting on Randle.
The way Julius Randle adjusts his shot in mid air, even when its not needed really annoys me. I don’t think his length is the source of it, but rather a bad habit picked up. If he went straight up at times(and only adjusting when needed), he would not only get more calls, but the and-1.
At the beginning of the season, Randle would be a ball stopper eventually initiating his move after facing his defender for 3 seconds, doing a combination of crossovers… to only go no where and pass it back out to Harrisons/Young. Towards the end of the season, he started making one move and going towards the basket. The problem is he can only go left.
Agree– he was much better when he stopped posting up so much and instead was used as more of a slasher.
I don’t consider Randle’s defensive tools to look that bad on paper. Yes he has a short wingspan but his lateral mobility for a power forward appears to be quite good. In addition strength also has its part on defense, even with the dwindling amount of post up players. His strength and lateral mobility is likely major reasons why he’s an excellent Drb prospect. Overall this is not like Doug McDermott where the carpet matches the drapes in terms of his defensive numbers and what his skillset looks like on that end.
So the main question comes down to his instincts. I understand your thought process, but to me a lot of young players will be crap defensively because of inexperience, and this remains true when beginning careers in the NBA. At Kentucky he may have been preserving fouls or just didn’t give a Fk because Cal never told him he needed to. I am higher on Randle’s instincts based on what he is doing on the offensive end. He shows me a lot of craftiness and fluidity that I associate with feel for the game.
Finally part of defense is effort level and Randle appears to be a high intensity prospect
As for the David Lee comment, I really disagree with that. David Lee is still good enough at offense to cover up defensive problems. Generally team defenses can cover up sieves. Warriors defense for example this year is great and they needed Lee’s offense more than they did another defender. It also bears mentioning that taking Lee in the draft is a high value pick for where he went because he’d have terrific trade value even if a team came down hard on his stats being empty. Personally I’m not sure Randle will ever be as good as Lee offensively but I’m also more confident he can get by defensively
I agree, but my point on Lee is his numbers as a senior were Randle’s as a freshman. Lee was terrible as a freshman–so was Joakim Noah and Al Horford. It seems if a kid can produce as a freshman at level an NBA player does as senior, that is significant. Given that improvement between freshman and sophomore year is a great indicator of success, we don’t have advantage of watching the freshman have that experience. If Randle was a senior and clueless on D, it would be a different evaluation. Randle definitely lacks instincts and does not project to be a good defender, but to equate him as terrible forever at 19 appears to be overreaching. Pretty tough to make accurate comparison when a guy is playing with a bunch of players who do not know what they are doing.
Also as to your comment re: Davis statistical ranking. I disagree that Davis was underrated or considered just another #1. For the record, even before the draft people were talking about how he would’ve gotten picked over everyone except Lebron and Oden in the 2000s and some thought Davis vs Oden was a question. Davis was easily one of the biggest locks to be a franchise player in the draft of this era. Davis caliber of play overall hasn’t been a surprise, the biggest surprise is how offensive his value has been. The statistical guys liked even him more than anyone else of course, but nothing against VJL, but it doesn’t mean anything that his system or anyone else rated Davis as a mega prospect. That was one of the easy part.
Amazing work, Dean. This article reminds me quite a bit of an article I got linked to from SB Nation. I bet you’ll enjoy it since the author shares your view of Julius Randle’s awful defense. Here’s the link: http://sbn.to/1ipadxn
Thanks John, that’s good stuff. Nice to see that somebody made a recent video to show that he is still awful on D.
Great video. Exact problems I saw all year. The reason I am not down on him is that he has improved. At 19 that is what I most want to see. He has the physical tools and as Dean says earlier, he seems to be a worker. Willie Cauley-Stein makes those exact same mistakes, yet is praised as a defender because of stats–although Cauley-Stein is an unusually capable perimeter defender for his size. One difference in Randle and other poor defenders is that he does not chase blocks or make lazy plays going for steals. I think he genuinely spent the season trying to learn to play defense the right way–he just lack instincts for it. Coaching in NBA is so good that they will help him figure it out. Do you want to pass on a relentless rebounder who can score in post, pass, and has a good handle over what else is available? I would bet on Randle developing into not being a liability on defense than the weaknesses shown by most other prospects. Hard to evaluate 19-year-olds playing mostly with 19-year-olds–none of whom know where they are supposed to go.
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I think its time to revisit this.
Randle has been damn good defensively so far this season and we’ve seen him defend guys like Wall and Beal exceptionally well, while also having to defend guys like Drummond and Boogie.
His PER is currently at 21.2 and his per36 are at (roughly) 21-10-3-1-2 shooting 63% from the field.
He should regress a bit, but he may have a role as a modern switchy 5?
Thoughts?