The NBA playoffs typically reveal players for who they really are, but this year’s postseason has shown Julius Randle to be someone he’s never been. It’s as if every bit of wishful thinking around one of the league’s most talented and frustrating players suddenly snapped into reality. The hang-ups that have followed Randle from team to team for more than a decade—gone. The disengagement on defense he showed even earlier this season—vanished without a trace. At 30 years old, Randle just figured it all out: his decision-making, his focus, his place in the universe.
This version of Randle is all star, no caveat. OK, some caveats. Randle will still get a little loose with his dribble here and there, and he might occasionally catch an opposing role player with an elbow to the head. That’s a price the Minnesota Timberwolves will gladly pay for a bruising forward operating with this kind of clarity, generating offense in a way very few can. How many bigs have we seen overpower Draymond Green? Randle lowered his right shoulder, time and again, and made it look easy. Brace for impact, and he’ll drive right around you. Fail to do so, and Randle will send you flying into the stanchion. He’s a bulldozer that handles like a Miata. The only liability, before this postseason, was the man behind the wheel.
Randle has churned out impressive stat lines for years, putting him vaguely in the company of playmaking forwards like LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo—but his contributions never stood up to scrutiny. Randle seized possessions in progress and settled for jumpers he shouldn’t have. His playmaking was too wild to steady an offense, and his scoring was never efficient enough to carry one. Focused defensive attention rooted out even the best parts of his game. In his two previous playoff runs (in which he was hampered by injury, to be fair), Randle averaged 17 points on 34 percent shooting from the field and had more turnovers than assists. This time around, he’s averaging 24 points on 51 percent shooting and dishing six assists a night, tied for the team high. That’s not growth—that’s an entirely different player.
There are plenty of factors that could explain Randle’s sudden transformation: a better-fitting role with the Timberwolves, a contract year, a perfect coach in Chris Finch. Yet ultimately, the reason Randle is dominating games is because he always could. Capability has never been the problem. It was always within Randle’s power to destroy his matchup and live in the paint. He profiled as an impact defensive player, whether he cared to be one or not. The biggest obstruction to Julius Randle has always been Julius Randle. Until now. The player wearing no. 30 in Minnesota blue is more purposeful than ever, more observant of the goals of the offense, more understanding of when it’s his time and when it’s better to reset the ball back to Anthony Edwards. Randle has been more dominant in these playoffs than the Wolves could have possibly expected—even when they traded away Karl-Anthony Towns for a package featuring him back in October.
Randle has always had a knack for hitting the kinds of tough, contested shots that only stars can. Yet part of being a star is understanding which parts of your game you carry with you every possession and which you seal away behind glass to break out in case of emergency. Why survive on fadeaway jumpers, after all, when you can just bully your way into the paint? Randle is getting to the basket with ease in these playoffs and converting a whopping 74 percent of his shots around the rim, according to Cleaning the Glass—a mark he’s never hit in any season or playoff run throughout his career. It’s as if Randle woke up one morning and realized that his defender is almost never in his weight class. That trend should hold true against pretty much the entire Thunder roster. Jalen Williams, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Alex Caruso will all have their opportunities to wrestle with Randle, but part of OKC’s challenge is keeping him away from the other guards and wings who might wind up in his path. It doesn’t take much for Randle to hunt out his preferred matchup. A hard charge in transition, a forced switch, a desperate zone—and all of a sudden, Isaiah Joe has to hold down a wrecking ball. Even Chet Holmgren could get tossed aside. Randle doles out so much punishment these days. It’s not really about dunking on people; it’s about bodying them out of the way so that he doesn’t have to.
The Warriors are one of the best defensive teams in the league, and even they had to zone up just to deny Randle straightforward driving lanes. He made some anyway. Soon he’ll have to barrel through the layers of swarming help in Oklahoma City, a formula that bogged down Nikola Jokic for long stretches of the second round. There’s really no clearer testament of how far Randle has come than the fact that it now seems entirely reasonable for an elite defense to approach guarding him in a way that’s similar to guarding Jokic. One defender just isn’t enough. The Thunder will need a dedicated stopper to throw his body in front of Randle’s drives and a pack of swiping defenders to attack his dribble and rush his process. For years, opponents could count on Randle stopping the ball and steering his own team off course. Now, just slowing him down is a tall order for even the best defense in modern NBA history.
Playoff basketball isn’t just about what a player can contribute but how those contributions feel. It’s an emotional game. The more those emotions flare, the more they illuminate which players on the floor really have their teammates’ trust. Randle unquestionably does. His game feels assertive and under control—like a scorer who can get the ball without momentum or advantage and make something happen. Without that counterweight, it would be all too easy for a defense like OKC’s to load up on Ant. Randle gives the Wolves a chance to hold up. It’s not just the production and the newfound efficiency that make him so critical for the Wolves; it’s the structure he provides.
Either teams have that kind of secondary creation, or they don’t. There’s no faking it. No disguising it. For the Wolves, Randle’s superb play is the difference between dropping in the early rounds and challenging for the NBA title. That’s why a team like Minnesota, when facing the financial pressure to trade Towns, took a chance on Randle’s talent despite all the reservations that came with it. There was no reason to believe that Randle would become this kind of playoff performer—save for the fact that he theoretically could. Then he did, and he changed everything.
Rob Mahoney
Rob covers the NBA and pop culture for The Ringer. He previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated.
