Julius Randle is proving everyone wrong: How supposed playoff choker has become a playoff riser

Stephen Noh

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Julius Randle is proving everyone wrong: How supposed playoff choker has become a playoff riser image

With the shot clock winding down in the first half of the Timberwolves’ closeout win against the Warriors, Julius Randle caught a pass and launched a deep lefty 3. He watched as the ball arced high, swishing cleanly through the bottom of the net. As he backpedaled and danced down the court, the broadcast zoomed in to Stephen Curry, who could only shake his head in complete disbelief.

Curry was all of us before this series. We thought we knew who Randle was. He was a black hole. He was a playoff choke artist. He was a downgrade from Karl-Anthony Towns, traded for solely to save the franchise money. 

It turns out we were all wrong.

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"I was saying to Julius after the game, you got a lot of disrespect your whole career, and so do I," Rudy Gobert told reporters at the start of the playoffs. "It's an opportunity for us to write our own narrative."

Randle has taken that narrative, roasted it, and sprinkled its charred remains over Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. Rather than a playoff choker, he's proven that he's a playoff riser. 

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Julius Randle took the hard path from playoff choker to playoff riser

It hasn't been an easy year for Randle. If you know anything about him, that shouldn't come as a surprise. The former No. 7 pick of the 2014 draft was mostly a disappointment for the Lakers, who didn't make much of an effort to sign him after his rookie deal was done. He moved on to play a year in New Orleans on a modest $9 million salary. Then came his career turnaround with the Knicks.

How many players win the Most Improved Player award seven seasons into their career, at the age of 26? Randle is the oldest to win it since Goran Dragic did it at age 27 in 2014.

Randle made his first of three All-Star appearances with the Knicks that season, but it came with a bittersweet ending. He was awful in his career playoff debut, shooting sub-30 percent during the team's first-round exit. 

Randle was the only real scoring threat on that Knicks team. He was constantly double-teamed throughout that series. The playoff choker whispers ignored that particular subtlety. They grew to a roar in his second playoff appearance, where he shot 37 percent from the field, 26 percent from 3, and was the scapegoat for a second-round collapse to a lower-seeded Heat team. 

Randle was gutting out a bad ankle injury that year, which he probably returned too early from. He didn't have the option to play through shoulder surgery last year, watching from the sidelines last year as a depleted Knicks team lost in seven games to the Pacers in that same second round.

A trade to the Timberwolves represented a new opportunity to make a difference on a contending team.

"My wife was actually saying it could be a lot worse," Randle joked during his introductory press conference. He was about to learn that painful truth yet again. 

At the start of December, the Wolves found themselves below .500 and in 11th place in the West. It was a startling drop for a team coming off a Conference Finals appearance. Randle wasn't playing that poorly, but the new guy was an easy target yet again. Everyone took aim, from teammates to opponents. 

The Wolves opened their season with a nationally televised game against the Lakers. Los Angeles controlled the game in the win, and it was due to targeting Randle over and over again on defense. The attacks didn't let up even after the final buzzer.

"We talked about Julius Randle, He sometimes is just standing and stuff," Rui Hachimura told Jacob Rude of SB Nation postgame. "So we talked about, we got to kind of use that. I know I can be the screener. I can be in the corner to kind of attack the rim." 

The growing pains with Randle continued as the season wore on. In a November loss to the hapless Raptors, Gobert had his man Scottie Barnes pinned under the basket. As Gobert called for the ball, Randle waved him out of the paint to clear a way for his own drive. A disgusted Gobert walked out of the paint so slowly that he was called for a three second violation.  

A funny thing happened after that initial stretch of games. The Wolves started playing better, and Randle grew more acclimated to his role in the final two months of the season. Minnesota went 30-6 in their final 36 games with him, as pointed out by The Athletic's Jon Krawczynski.

Who knew that introducing two new rotation players in Randle and fellow trade piece Donte DiVincenzo would take some time? Randle even started playing both ends of the floor. 

"You know, I've never see [Randle] play defense before," Anthony Edwards joked to the Minnesota Star Tribune's Chris Hine after a 17-point win over the Warriors in December. "That's f—ing incredible, and he's right here, put the camera on him. He be guarding his a— off." 

That narrative that Randle won't play defense? Ask the Lakers about that. Once a target on JJ Redick's gameplan, Randle got the last laugh in the Wolves' first-round win over Los Angeles. He took turns on LeBron James and Luka Doncic, holding up impressively against both stars. 

Randle was even better in the second round against the Warriors. He bulldozed his way into 25.2 points per game. And the supposed ballhog added a team-high 7.4 assists per game. 

"It’s really what turned our season around was his playmaking," Wolves coach Chris Finch said of Randle after Game 3 of that series. "He gives us almost another point guard out there." 

Steve Kerr agreed with those sentiments a few days later, after his Warriors team was put out of its misery.

"I remember playing the Timberwolves earlier in the season here and it was tough fit for them, figuring out the spacing," Kerr said. "But he’s taken a leap. We couldn’t guard him all series."

At the start of the playoffs, Randle called it "one of the few times, probably really the only time in my whole career, I feel like I have a chance to really play for something." 

Those Knicks opportunities put him in impossible circumstances to succeed. He's getting a fair shot now, and he's bulldozing his way to where he needs to go.

He told all 19,395 Wolves fans in the Target Center on Wednesday who he was with his play. In case they didn't get the message, he said it again in his on-floor postgame interview with ESPN. 

"Honestly, I don't really get into the narratives of having something to prove," Randle said. "I think the only thing I want to prove is I'm a winner." 

Stephen Noh

Stephen Noh started writing about the NBA as one of the first members of The Athletic in 2016. He covered the Chicago Bulls, both through big outlets and independent newsletters, for six years before joining The Sporting News in 2022. Stephen is also an avid poker player and wrote for PokerNews while covering the World Series of Poker from 2006-2008.