Spaced In

Minnesota's Julius Randle era is off to a clunky start.

Does a new NBA season even begin before we get Zach Lowe’s League Pass Rankings? Sadly, it does and the Worldwide Leaders’s questionable decisions notwithstanding, your favorite blog boy is back with another season of takes on the spectrum between cold pizza and reheated soup.

When the New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves executed their offseason Karl-Anthony Towns/Julius Randle swap (not to forget Donte DiVincenzo, done dirty by the Nova Knicks), my reaction was along the lines of

Nevertheless, contract questions aside, I had fewer questions on the Knicks side of the trade than the Timberwolves one. For a team that ranked 16th in offense last season, I worried that switching KAT for Randle would introduce spacing challenges and present more offensive puzzles for Coach Chris Finch to solve. KAT is one of the greatest shooting big men in history; Julius Randle’s effective field goal percentage rarely cracks 55% and he consistently shoots below league average from most spots.

With the caveats that we are one game into the season and that I did not watch the Wolves in preseason, Tuesday’s season opener between the Wolves and the Los Angeles Lakers did not allay my concerns. Yes, Minnesota got pounded on the defensive glass by the Lakers, but that doesn’t explain their 109 offensive rating for the game (that would have been a bottom three league mark last season per Cleaning the Glass.)¹ The obvious culprit here is Minnesota’s turnovers; nearly 1 in 5 Minnesota possessions ended with a turnover, a mark that would have placed them dead last in the league last season. Many of those turnovers were in the “do better protecting the ball” category, with careless giveaways galore. The usually-dependable Mike Conley Jr. had three, including two on back-to-back possessions in a critical second quarter stretch. Minnesota will hope that’s a blip and not an early sign of Conley showing his age.

However, even some of the unforced errors could be pinned on Minnesota’s poor spacing and the personnel on the floor. Consider Julius Randle’s offensive foul in the first half:

Look at how far Lebron James sags off as Randle receives the ball, daring Randle to shoot:

The Lakers consistently had their defenders ignore Randle when he was off the ball beyond the arc. That enabled them to show more bodies at the other Timberwolves in the paint, particularly Anthony Edwards, and forced either tough shots or turnovers. The image below is emblematic, with D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves entirely unconcerned by Randle and Jaden McDaniels. Edwards drives into the paint to find himself surrounded by all five Lakers.

This ended in an Edwards turnover:

Look, shooting isn’t everything. Smart playmakers can prise open spaces for their teammates. With the ball in hand, Randle has always been un underrated playmaker. In his best seasons on the Knicks, Randle accounted for nearly a quarter of his teammates’ baskets when he was on the court, right up there with the best bigs in the league per Cleaning the Glass. Minnesota hasn’t even begun to explore the playmaking upgrade it received in going from KAT to Randle. There were some signs yesterday:

Even with the cramped spacing Randle’s addition to the lineup is likely to bring, his playmaking and Ant’s lighting first step will still open up a lot of those inside-out three point opportunities for the Wolves. Naz Reid, Joe Ingles, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker missed a few of these looks last night that you can count on them making more often:

And the other part of that trade, Donte DiVincenzo? He’s going to help with the spacing. Ant and the Wolves are still figuring out their new toys and learning what they have in DDV is part of that. I caught at least two instances where Ant missed a skip to DDV open in the opposite corner. And although Ant makes this three, the smart play would have been to take advantage of D’Angelo Russell cheating over to the nail and hit DDV in the corner:

Per NBA tracking data, DDV shot 42% on catch and shoot threes last season while Ant was 33% on pull-ups. The math isn’t everything, but it is something.

Ultimately, I wonder if Randle’s primary role is as a ball handler when Ant is off the floor. As I wrote some time back, Randle’s breakout season on the Knicks was characterized by his playmaking and his self-created shot making. The former has been a more permanent feature of his game than the latter, so Minnesota may be best served by doubling down on his playmaking and minimizing the damage from his more transient shooting streaks. Is Randle paid too much to be a high usage sixth man, with the Wolves starting Naz Reid instead? Most of Minnesota’s non-KAT lineups performed poorly on offense last season, but the Ant-NAW-McDaniels-Reid-Rudy Gobert lineup was hellacious on defense and managed to score enough to outscore opponents by nearly 4 points per 100 possessions per CTG. Perhaps Conley has aged into a bench role as well, and a second unit helmed by Randle, DDV, and Conley could be intriguing. I imagine Coach Finch is far from done tinkering this season.

1. Technically, some part of their offensive struggles could be attributed to their inability to get defensive rebounds; fewer defensive boards means fewer opportunities to run off of opponent misses and transition offense is typically more efficient than half court offense against a set defense. However, foregone points added through transition probably explain just a tiny portion of Minnesota’s offensive struggles in the game.