This streaky forward transforms into Michael Jordan when he plays against the Sacramento Kings

As long as he is a standout player in this league, Julius Randle is a top scorer. Some nights he is capable of monster outbursts. But on other nights he can produce historically ice-cold shooting performances.

Since joining the New York Knicks in 2020-21 (when Randle began handling a heavier offensive load), Randle has only posted an above-average batting average (the best measure of scoring efficiency) in two of the last five years.

However, his performance against our Sacramento Kings has remained consistent over the years, and in our season debut against Randle's new team (the Minnesota Timberwolves), Randle continued his reign of terror in Northern California.

In Thursday's win over the Kings, Randle scored 33 points on an insane 90.1% shooting percentage. As mentioned, this wasn't the first time Randle disbanded our team.

In his last seven appearances against the Kings, Randle is averaging 27.6 PPG on 62.5% shooting (according to Stathead). His teams are 5-2 in those games. These grades are a big improvement over his overall averages during that time. In 268 games since 2020-21, Randle averaged 23.3 PPG while shooting 55.8%.

A key takeaway I took from the Kings' 117-115 loss to the Timberwolves (aside from DeRozan's inconsistent performance) was that we actually played the better game between the two teams.

In my opinion, the Kings (who are no strangers to their opponents' poor shooting luck) should have won this game if not for Randle's ridiculously hard shooting streak. Just days before that game, Randle scored just 16 points on a pedestrian 5-for-10 shooting from the floor. If Randle had played more similarly, the Kings would have won easily.

To be fair, part of the reason Randle played so well is because the Kings, as they stand, have difficulty defending bigger, beefier forwards (part of our lack of size). However, Randle still made a lot of contested jump shots (he was 11 of 15 on non-rim field goal attempts), which he doesn't typically hit at such a high rate.

The variance was not on the Kings' side against the Timberwolves. But if they continue like this and have shooting luck on their side, they will win a lot of games. For now, we just have to hope Randle doesn't keep this Kings-focused heater going much longer.