Texas Chuck wrote:shrink wrote:I feel like people have decided who Randle is, and have not paid attention to his rebirth the last couple months as point forward, the improved defense, and his willing to do whatever Chris Finch needs him to do. .
First the theory-- I think its fair for someone to put more stock in a long-term track record rather than a short run of play, right? Doesn't mean they are correct to do so, but I tend to be that guy. I don't overreact to slumps or hot streaks. If a player has had a pretty consistent level/style of play I tend to believe they are going to revert to the mean most of the time.
On to Randle, I would hope most posters already know he had point forward in his game. We've seen Randle do this before. I can't speak to isolating out his defense. Hard to know how good he is playing between Gobert and McDaniels who obviously can cover for a lot. That doesn't mean Randle hasn't been good, but I just don't know how I could know for sure.
I think both of these are fair, and I don’t think I worded my post very well.
I was trying to make a distinction between earlier posters who have used a common, thumbnail generalization of Randle like this.
He's a poor defender not a great passer likes to Pound The Rock too much and takes threes inefficiently x4.5 a game... in my opinion too high of a usage for his skill set
And to this guy’s credit, Randle resembled that often for the Knicks, even when he first arrived in Minnesota. But the role change altered what Randle will likely be for MIN going forward, and their likelihood to keep him. To me, this isn’t really a hot streak (though I used the win streak to encourage people to look more closely), this is a fundamental change in the way Randle’s skills are used, on a team that doesn’t need him to pound the rock, that’s motivated his defense, and improved his passing to more than just kick outs (and he wasn’t bad at that to begin with). I’m not saying he has never done this before, just that he is not that stereotype going forward if he stays with the Timberwolves.