At times this season Julius Randle looked like the best player on the Los Angeles Lakers roster. His inconsistency, however, was frustrating at times though he certainly showed overall growth throughout the season.
This coming offseason will be a very important one for the Lakers franchise as a whole as well as for each of these players individually and Randle made it clear that he will be putting in a lot of work this summer.
According to Lakers Nation reporter Serena Winters, Randle says his biggest focus is coming back next year in amazing shape:
Randle: “The biggest focus for me this summer is going to be coming back into incredible shape, a beast coming back into incredible shape."
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) April 13, 2017
Randle mentioned a few different things that he feels he needs to improve on this offseason, also noting that he wants to improve his right hand and saying that he needs to be more consistent bringing high energy every night.
He also spoke at length about needing to improve his defense, specifically as a helper:
Julius says he has a long way to go on defense. Says he feels more comfortable guarding 1-on-1, must get better helping/as a shot blocker
— Lakers Nation (@LakersNation) April 13, 2017
Defense has been one of Randle’s achilles heels throughout his career. As he noted, he does take pride in guarding his man, but struggles with help-side defense which is more about recognition and seeing things before they happen.
Randle showed some flashes of his defensive capabilities at different times throughout the season, coming up with some big plays on that end of the floor. He does understand what he needs to work on and sounds very adamant about improving in all of those areas.