This Zach Randolph trade feels a bit funny. After all, one of the few things the Knicks don't need is a low-post scorer who's a bit suspect on the defensive end and in terms of focus and effort. But insofar as they got him for cheap, it seems that the Knicks pulled off a solid deal, strange as those words are to type. Meanwhile, Portland either has a lot of faith in Channing Frye as a prospect, or else very little faith in Randolph. I tend to think it must be the former, since even if they were absolutely desperate to rid themselves of Randolph he seems to me like a guy that more than one team would be interested in getting their hands on.
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Randolph to New York
29 Jun 2007 09:01 am
Comments (62)
The Phoenix fire sale continues. Not only did they sell a first rounder to Portland, but it turns out that they also sold James Jones to Portland.
Add the three first rounders they couldn't sign last year, and the price tag for keeping Shawn Marion while staying under the tax threshold is now James Jones and four first rounders.
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And the following tidbit means I'm no longer ready to sign the commitment papers on Steve Kerr:
A Suns source adamantly denies that Amare Stoudemire is going anywhere -- Atlanta, Charlotte, wherever -- to make a deal for Kevin Garnett work. That's no surprise: Why would you give up a young all-star big man for an aging all-star big man?
Today's hot KG rumors have him going to Golden State or Dallas. Playing the KG rumor game is like playing where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
I don't know if this is an urban legend, but the quote attributed to his high school coach is ...
I just don't want the day to come where I pick up that paper and it says (Zach] shot someone, or that he was shot. Every day that goes by that I don't see that, I feel good."
That seems like a guy with fairly high implosion possibilities, especially in a city like no other and a team completely without internal leadership.
Yikes.
While I agree portland could have gotten more in terms of talent for Randolph, that wasn't their primary goal in getting rid of him. Besides getting rid of a cancer they wanted to free up cap space. Since in the NBA trades have to be matched in salary, Portland did a very good thing in matching salary, but not matching length of contract. They can buy Francis out (what most people think they will) and now suddenly they have 60 mil over the next 4 years free. Essentially they were trading Randolph for the ability to sign a good free agent in the future.
Rockapella rules!
"I don't know if this is an urban legend"
I believe it is not an urban legend.
But then again, his high school was in Indiana, and my perception of Indiana is that it's the single most backwards state in the union. In other words, I tend to think his coach is likely a clueless redneck.
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FWIW, my sense is that Zach is not a truly bad guy, though he obviously isn't very press friendly or very PG rated.
Character-wise, I've always had a soft spot for him for punching out convicted rapist Ruben Patterson after Patterson had been mercilessly bullying a rookie on the Trailblazers.
I'd want him on my team.
I believe this was raised over at True Hoop but don't Channing Frye and LaMarcus Aldridge seem to be very, very similar players? Still though, Portland has a very nice 4/5 rotation of Oden, Aldridge and Frye, all young and all cheap. You could do much worse.
also the trailblazers get significant cap relief. i think this is a fairly significant portion of the trade.
Petey's obviously trying to bait me.
Randolph is from Marion, Indiana, which is the location of the last organized lynching in the Northern United States. It is no one's idea of a free-thinking, multicultural paradise. That said, it's also a High School with a more recent history of winning state basketball championships with integrated teams. If the coach is worried about him ending up in prison, he might actually have some good reasons.
Here's a brief rundown of Randolph's highlights, via the Chicago Trib:
High school years:
•Thirty days in juvenile detention for shoplifting.
•Thirty days of house arrest for battery.
•Thirty days in juvenile detention for receiving stolen property, a gun.
2003:
•Team suspension by the Trail Blazers for sucker-punching teammate Ruben Patterson in practice and breaking his eye socket.
•Arrested in Portland for driving under the influence of intoxicants and marijuana.
2004: Accused by police of lying in an investigation of his brother shooting three men in an Indiana nightclub.
2006: Sued by a Portland woman for sexual assault, though prosecutors didn't file criminal charges.
2007:
•Left a strip club without paying the bill while he was on bereavement leave from the team and missed three games after the death of his girlfriend's cousin.
•Earlier this month, police were called to the parking lot of a strip club where Randolph and teammate Darius Miles were part of a gathering and a gunshot was fired.
Hey, you know, maybe Patterson deserved it. But leaving a strip club without paying the bill? Dude, that's cold.
Hoping someone can help me figure this out. So Yi's people don't want him playing for the Bucs, and will refuse to allow him to go there if they aren't assured that he'll get playing time.
Here's what I dont get. Who is actually making this decision? Does Yi get to make the final decision? I've read "team officials in China" are making that decision. Is that because they have him under contract or do team officials = the Chinese government? If this is the case, isn't this a wild abuse of personal freedom (not that abuse of freedom is anything new for China)? Should the NBA really be endorsing such behavior?
The Knicks were on track to get under the cap in two years. This trade kills that possibility. When you then consider Randolph's microfracture surgery, his inability to play defense or block shots, and his character issues, the trade makes no sense.
"Petey's obviously trying to bait me."
I actually had an incredibly poor impression of Indiana long before learning you'd spent time there. My antipathy is not tied to you in any way.
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"Thirty days of house arrest for battery."
This is the only incident that gives me pause.
The 2006 alleged sexual assault incident seems to clearly exonerate Randolph upon close inspection. All the other incidents are not physical assaults, which are the only things that really bother me, with the exception of the Patterson beat-down, which, as stated, I think was justified.
So there is some incident of battery when he was in high school that gives me pause. But other than that, the rest of Z-Bo's rap sheet doesn't seem a problem to me in the least.
As stated, he's not media friendly and not PG rated. But who cares? Morally, I'd say he's likely well ahead of Kobe on the waiting list for heaven.
I love it when TV experts contradict almost instantly contradict themselves.
A bad Celtics team gets aging, high character, big contract in Ray Allen... Stephen A. Smith thinks it's horrible.
A bad Knicks team gets young, poor character, big contract in Zach Randolph...Stephen A. Smith loves it.
Mike
"The Knicks were on track to get under the cap in two years."
If you have an owner willing to permanently pay tax, there's no reason to ever get under the cap. Similarly, Dallas is rarely under the cap either.
If you're willing to eat some bad contracts, there are plenty of ways to pick up talent while over the cap, as both NY and Dallas have shown.
It's been a decade since the last time a franchise player was signed as a pure free-agent, which is the only time that being under the cap actually matters.
In short, it doesn't actually help NY in any way to get under the cap.
The only thing that makes sense to me on this deal is that, for the reasons stated above, Zach Randolph's actual trade value was far, far lower than you would think from looking at his stat line. Given the number of teams shopping around top players (Kobe, KG, Ray Allen, maybe even Paul Pierce), along with the usual trade value of a 20/10 low post scorer, it's surprising this was the best deal they could do.
Frye is a pretty good fit with Oden, as a guy that can hit the face up jumper, a little more mobile, with a knock for not being a great rebounder. They do seem to complement each other. But given that the Blazers have Aldredge as well, it would have made more sense to try and get a perimeter scorer. I guess their plan is to dump Francis and then use the cap space to try and sign some perimeter help.
i hate the cap and everything about it, including that it's very hard to have a basketball conversation without bringing it up.
but to try to stay on the basketball side, channing frye is at best a third forward and more likely a fourth; francis is done. getting randolph for them is at a minimum a good bet and at a maximum a major talent transformation that actually gives the knicks a shot at having two good big rebounders - lee and randolph - on the floor at the same time. quentin richardson being a good rebounder for his size, that means the knicks might actually win the battle of the boards a fair amount of the time, which is an unmitigated basketball good.
"It's been a decade since the last time a franchise player was signed as a pure free-agent, which is the only time that being under the cap actually matters."
Wha...? Didn't Steve Nash leave via free agency? How did Gilbert Arenas end up in Washington?
"i hate the cap and everything about it, including that it's very hard to have a basketball conversation without bringing it up."
You ought to learn to love the CBA, howard. The basics can be learned in half an hour, and once you understand them, it makes playing GM a helluva lot more interesting.
And even on the conceptual side, the CBA is a positive thing. It means that the 28 out of 30 teams that don't like paying tax are playing on a basically level playing field. If you want to sign a $10m/yr player, it means you have $10m/yr less to spend on the rest of your squad.
And managing the tradeoffs are where the good GM's get separated from the bad GM's. For example, while Shawn Marion is a nice player, Mike D'Antoni's unwillingness to deal him last summer for tax reasons is going to cripple the Suns for years to come. Or for another example, tax reasons explain why Kevin Garnett is a lousy pickup for most teams in the league.
Once you wrap your mind around the rough outlines of the CBA, the architecture of teams starts to become a lot more interesting.
Finally, after lurking on this blog since, like 2002, I have something useful to add.
I went to high school with Zach in Marion, IN (and then was in the same college class as Matthew Y., so I'm more snob than redneck klansman). I even tutored him a bit for the SAT. He came in with a 560 or something, and eventually scored 10 points below the NCAA cutoff of, I think, 820. He got a waiver to play at MSU--I think, because he had a learning disability that his mother was too proud to have formally diagnosed, and which would have nullified the cutoff anyway.
When I knew Zach, he was a very genial guy with little sense of self who just wanted to be liked. It's strange to think of, for a guy of his size, but he would be what he thought others wanted to see. Which is a bad thing, when you're in the kind of environment he grew up in--just google 'Roger Randolph' to see how his brother turned out. MSU and Izzo would have been great for him, except that he wasn't anywhere near being prepared for college. The old Trail Blazers were about the worst situation he could have gone into.
His personality may have solidified by now (for the worse, apparently), but even if not, the Knicks don't seem like a good situation for him, and neither does NYC.
Zach's HS coach was named Moe Smedley and was a kindly man who did a lot for Zach but was a little dim. I've never heard the quote above, but I'd interpret it as wry remark with a hint of truth. If the Zach he and I knew were ever to shoot someone, it would be out of an insecure need to demonstrate machismo.
petey, as a baseball and soccer fan, i don't actually think the cap produces a more competitive environment than non-cap sports have.
but more to the point, it's a personal bias here: it's not that the fundamentals of the cap are all that hard to master, it's that i'm interested in the best product on the floor, not the best product on the floor within a context of a zero-sum game.
i also prefer trades based on talent rather than cap room.
so i can certainly see why you say that the architecture of teams within a salary cap regime has an interesting challenge to it - architecture is a good word here, since architecture is first and foremost a problem-solving profession - but it's just not a school of architecture that i find sufficiently appealing to devote too many of my remaining seconds on earth to....
"Wha...? Didn't Steve Nash leave via free agency? How did Gilbert Arenas end up in Washington?"
Both signed for considerably less than max money, as both were seen as considerably less than franchise players at the times of their signings.
In the decade since Shaq signed with the Lakers, the most significant players moved haven't moved as pure free agents.
Ben Wallace is probably the biggest name to move as a pure free agent in the last decade.
That sounds about right to me, Rob.
I'm back in Marion right now, for a summer between bouts of grad school. Last night, I was working in the coffee shop (the one that's not explicitly evangelical Christian) and the only other group in the place was a men's Bible study--sort of a racially-reconciled Promise Keepers for younger guys.
One member of the group was an acquaintance of mine and friend of Zach's from high school. He told me about how bad his life was until he found Jesus...yadda yadda...some pretty conservative stuff, but it seemed like he was trying to live right. I was having trouble working over the sound of the Book of John and was getting up to leave when he got a text (and maybe later, a call) from Zach announcing the trade, a few minutes before espn.com had it.
Which is just to say, Zach has some good influences in his life, too. I think his wife, Faune is, similarly, a do right woman.
You've got good stories, Rob. Correct moment to un-lurk.
In a lot of ways it's tougher to get into trouble in New York for the small stuff. Nobody really drives themselves anywhere, so you can go to the strip clubs, get drunk, and expect to take a cab home, plus it's absurdly easy to get weed delivered to your house with almost no risk of being busted. People always say players are more likely to get in trouble here, and then it never actually happens. Players get in trouble in small towns where they're bored.
Also if you even sneeze wrong the press is on your ass. So you can't hide this stuff the same way.
rob, i'm going to agree with petey: on the assumption that you're not just making this all up, keep the stories coming....
that means the knicks might actually win the battle of the boards a fair amount of the time, which is an unmitigated basketball good.
Howard, the Knicks were actually a very solid rebounding team last year, even without Curry's help. Lee was obviously great, and Richardson and Balkman were quite helpful as well.
Randolph should just add to the advantage.
It's also important to note that he and Curry aren't carbon copies of one another. He plays more of a face up game, and actually has a 12-15 foot jumper. Sort of like a better Channing Frye. Also he doesn't actually turn the ball over that much. Check out Knickerblogger.net for an analysis of his turnover rate compared to guys with similar usage rates. It's right in there with the rest of the top post players. (Curry's is demonstrably NOT)
I just can't wait to watch both Randolph and Curry fail to pass out of the double team yet again.
brian, just to refine the point: david lee was one of the best rebounders in the league, and when healthy, quentin was pound-for-pound a superior rebounder (balkman didn't really play enough to be that big a factor).
but once lee and richardson got hurt, the knicks were just killed off the boards.
so i suppose the fair way to put it is that with randolph and a healthy lee and richardson, the knicks could be a consistently superior rebounding team next year.
(btw, in last night's yi thread, both petey and i thought that the knicks should go with a curry-randolph-lee front line a fair amount of the time, and then i'd use balkman and richardson as my reserve 3s)
It's been a decade since the last time a franchise player was signed as a pure free-agent, which is the only time that being under the cap actually matters.
In short, it doesn't actually help NY in any way to get under the cap.
There are players who aren't quite franchise players, but are nevertheless quite good and can't be acquired for the MLE.
"Sort of like a better Channing Frye."
I saw maybe 5 or 6 Blazers games last year, and one game really stood out.
It was a late season Blazers' road game against some other non-playoff team. And down in the 4th quarter, the home team correctly deduced that Z-Bo was the only player on the Blazers who could beat them. So they decided to double him both with and without the ball for every second of action in the halfcourt.
I've never seen that before.
The rest of the Blazers were mostly useless at scoring, even operating explicitly 4 on 3. The home team caught up and then took the lead. And finally the Blazer figured out how to feed Z-Bo right into the double.
He made good things happen. The Blazers took back control. On the winning play, he split the double to go the rim.
Scary stuff. And indeed better than Channing Frye.
Okay-- apologies if these get a little thin.
And first, evidently Faune is just his longtime girlfriend, not wife. She's also a very short former gymnast and all-state volleyball player, so they make an awkward couple. Faune's step-dad was a local basketball star and general hooligan until her mother reined him in.
When I tutored Zach, I was a Sr. and he was a Jr. We started with "negative times negative equals a positive," which seemed pretty basic. Not even a glimmer of recognition. So we backed up a few more steps. For this, I got a couple indirect references in recruiting mags and eventually the Post... ("tutored by a Harvard-bound classmate")
My mom is a speech therapist at an elementary school with several of Zach's little nephews running around. Two of them are her students, and around major holidays, she hears about how Uncle Zach flies all of them to Portland and showers them with nice clothes, four-wheelers and pit bulls. She started to notice some inconsistencies in the stories, and figured out that one of the kids doesn't actually get to go....evidently he's only a second cousin or something. Poor kid.
Zach has a couple kids around town, who should be hitting 1st grade soon. It'll be a boost to our storied basketball team. Anyone remember our last star, Jay Edwards? Hoosiers, Clippers, drug violation, out of basketball... Now Jay Jr. is a star.
Petey,
You must not have seen many Blazer games if you didn't notice that they played better withotu Randolph. They went on a mjor winning streak while he was hurt and the offense (correctly) ran through Roy instead of him.
Yeah Randoplh can get you 20/10, but the cost of that is having your entire team play at a stand still while you wait for Zach to go through his slow motion moves.
Anyone remember our last star, Jay Edwards? Hoosiers, Clippers, drug violation, out of basketball...
At least Edwards' sidekick Lyndon Jones, who never made it in the NBA, seems to be a model citizen.
Friday Hoosierblogging. Catch the Fever.
"Yeah Randoplh can get you 20/10, but the cost of that is having your entire team play at a stand still while you wait for Zach to go through his slow motion moves."
The point of the story isn't that he gets number. The point of the story is that he's capable of off-the-charts dominance.
And call me crazy, but I like having dominant players on my team.
I understand why the Blazers want a divorce, and I'm not even saying they're making the wrong decision. Oden > Randolph. And I understand why, given the style they're aiming for on Oden's team, Randolph may not belong. I also understand that the Blazers have a long-term local image problem they want to correct.
But Z-Bo can flat out ball. Put the right cast around him, and he'll win you playoff series. I like guys like that.
Yes, Lyndon was first class. Too bad he couldn't pull a Conley.
It just occurs to me that trade this puts Zach and Jeffries together. Zach shredded him in the 2000 HS championship, but JJ won Mr. Basketball because of the character issues.
"Friday Hoosierblogging. Catch the Fever."
Z-Bo is still bitter that Jared Jeffries beat him out for Indiana high school player of the year.
Do I have to take aspirin now?
Curse you Rob, for beating me to the spot.
Petey,
In the East absolutley Randolph will win a playoff series for you.
In the West he does things like put up 40 on Phoenix yet the Suns win the game since Amare and Marion combine for 60+ in the time Randolph is guarding them. (and yeah I know he only guards one of them at a time, that's the point, Amare kills him so you switch him onto Marion, then the Suns switch to feeding Marion)
And lets not even go to the comedy that is him "guarding" Duncan or Dirk or Garnett.
"In the East absolutley Randolph will win a playoff series for you. In the West he does things like ... And lets not even go to the comedy that is him "guarding" Duncan or Dirk or Garnett."
Carlos Boozer, who is similarly defensive challenged, just helped win a few playoff series in the West, and without doubt, Z-Bo > Boozer.
You underrate Randolph because he's been on a losing team. But if you surround him with the right crew, he's a very valuable NBA commodity.
Actually, this one looks bad too ...
"Left a strip club without paying the bill while he was on bereavement leave from the team and missed three games after the death of his girlfriend's cousin."
Think about it ... bailing on an NBA team for "bereavement leave", then doing ANYTHING (even shooting pool or going to Vegas) rather than getting back to the team as soon as possible. Not good ...
without doubt, Z-Bo > Boozer.
Of course, even if you are right, it isn't without doubt.
Randolph 23.6 ppg, 10.1 boards, 2.2 assists, 3.1 tos, .467 FG%, .819 FT%.
Boozer 20.9 ppg, 11.7 boards, 3.0 assists, 2.6 tos, .561 FG%, .685 FT%.
Very close. Boozer is a superior defender by anyone's estimation, and wasn't playing for a terrible team. Would I take Boozer over Randolph? Probably. It's close. But more importantly, it isn't close to "without doubt" that Randolph is better.
Petey,
I live in Portland and watch Randolph play 50 or 60 times a year, Randolph is off the scales worthless on D
Boozer is indeed a more efficient scorer than Z-Bo. And Pau Gasol is a more efficient scorer than both of them.
But assuming Z-Bo can continue his production from last year, he's easily a more valuable player than either Boozer or Gasol.
Efficiency is important, but dominance is better.
Or put another way, forcing the opposition to double you is the most valuable offensive attribute in the association.
Petey,
I agree that Randolph can help with the right group of teammates. And Zach is a flat-out scorer. He's incredibly creative at coercing the ball into the hole.
But trust us Portland fans when we say he makes Boozer look like an all-league defender. He may be the most half-hearted pick-and-roll defender I've ever seen. And there will be about three or four occasions every game where he misses a bucket and then glares at an official for a full 3 seconds while the opposing team streaks for an easy bucket. Drove me nuts.
Plus, even though he's a great offensive rebounder he's only a so-so defensive rebounder. He seems to react much quicker when points are at stake.
I respect Zach's talents, but I just don't think he's the kind of guy you build a winner around. For every great play he makes on offense, he makes a bad play on defense.
Oh, and one other thing. It's great that Zach can command double teams, but he's terrible at passing out of them (although he did get somewhat better this year). Commanding a double team is only a valuable asset if you can make the other team pay for doubling you. Zach was never particularly good at that. The reason he still scores so much is that he's a volume shooter with a solid outside stroke, and he's capable of bulling his way to the basket against a double team and still finding a way to score.
Petey, forcing the opposition to double you is great if you can pass out of the double, if you are a horrible passer with no court vision whose first instinct is to force up a shot against the double, it is less valuable...
Listen I think Randolph is a truly rare offensive talent. He's got the best post game south of Tim Duncan. I was desperate for the Bulls to get him. The thing is the Bulls already have great interior defense and led the league in rebounding. They wouldn't need those things from Randolph. For the Knicks... I just don't get it. He and Eddy Curry are so similar. They really don't have the kind of interior defense to cover up for Randolph's lapses.
"But trust us Portland fans when we say..."
But I don't trust you. Local fans very often usually have the absolute worst perspective on their home team players.
All the Bulls fans think Ben Gordon is a future HOFer, and all the Blazers fans think Z-Bo is a loser.
Post players need a whole structure built around around them to thrive. But if that structure is in place, Z-Bo is elite to a degree that most Blazers fans aren't able to perceive at the moment.
As stated above, I don't necessarily disagree with Portland's decision to throw him to the curb, given the influx of young promising talent that will demand a different style. But while you're watching your Oden-ettes coming together and improving rapidly, you're still likely going to be watching from afar as Zach scales great heights in New York City.
All the Bulls fans think Ben Gordon is a future HOFer, and all the Blazers fans think Z-Bo is a loser.
Petey we should wager blog dollars on who has a higher PER next year, Gordon or JR Smith.
But if that structure is in place, Z-Bo is elite to a degree that most Blazers fans aren't able to perceive at the moment.
But that structure is not in place on a team where he will have to fight certified ball hogs Nate Robinson and Stephon Marbury, and doppleganger Eddie Curry for touches. And they'll get even worse on D.
So you saw one game in which Zach had a dominant offensive performance and you're somehow better positioned to judge his abilities than Portland fans who watched him play every game for the past four years? I agree that local fans aren't always the best judge of their respective players, but we certainly do know what Zach does well and what he doesn't do well.
We're not saying Zach isn't skilled, or that he might not succeed in the right environment. We are saying, however, that he has an awful lot of shortcomings that we saw night after night. He's capable of big games, yes, but he's also capable of driving fans and coaches crazy with his poor decisions and me-first playing style.
I'd say he's a bigger version of Dantley or Aguirre on the Pistons Bad Boy's teams. A one dimensional scorer. Yeah you need a guy like that as a complimentary player in the right system. But Zach is paid a max contract and thinks he should be "the man", he thinks he is in the Tim Duncan class.
As a Portlander and avid Blazer fan, I can tell you I'm glad Zach isn't here anymore.
It's hard to explain why Zach can put up 23/10 and still have so little value. But you'll see.
He is a fantastic low post scorer, and someday he may mature, learn how to play basketball, and dominate the East. Then again he may not. I'm guessing not.
I suggest you guys all read the text of the sexual assault complaint against Zach last year - it'll give you a good glimpse of the real Zach. Some of the stuff is heresay but some of it he admits to.
Here, for your ease:
http://edit.blogs.oregonlive.com/uploads/279873-randolph.pdf
A portland ticket holder right by the home bench. Zach would help some teams a lot. He has worked extremely hard on his game, last year he learned to to right hand or left hand dribble to the rim. Can score on most doubles and some triple teams. Seldom reacts on defense but he can play it. Sometimes when the team is playing well and he picks up the felling from others he will really try. But, almost always he is to slow for his man and never gives weak side help, just allows the layup. I am convinced it is so he can stay in the game and score. He hates being pulled out with fouls. He has good footwork and very long arms and could play defense but won't.
Ralph gets it.
And don't forget two more things:
1) He's only 25. He should get better for another couple of years.
2) He's never been in a competitive atmosphere where he's felt a need to play winning team ball.
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I understand the narrative of why all you Portlanders hate on Z-Bo. He was the main man on your team for several years while your team sucked. He's got a difficult personality.
For the nescient hoops fans in Portland, you're basically supposed to hate on him.
But you've got no clue on his attributes vis-a-vis other NBA players.
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And welcome to all you Henry Abbot readers. Henry is a wonderful read. I wish I could comment on his boards without registration and all the other rigamarole over there.
I'm glad he picked up on the Marion, Indiana comments here. I thought they were pretty interesting.
Actually, Zach played on winning teams at MSU and during his first two years in the NBA. He had a respectable performance the last time Portland was in the playoffs (2003). After that they started to build the team around him and that's when they began to suck.
I think everyone is overlooking one important fact about the Randolph to NY trade........it essentially eats minutes for their best, young, cheap($926,000), rebounding big (David Lee) when it seemed he was primed for a jump to the starting lineup. He was in the top 5 in the league in rebounds per minute (10.7 in 29 minutes a game) and he shot over 60% from the field. Not to mention that he is also of high character. All this for a malcontent with a 12 million $$$$ a year contract. Didn't the Knicks already have an underacheiving big (Eddie Curry) or was that just my imagination???? Oh well, lucky for me my team(THE MIAMI HEAT!!!!!!) is only half as screwed. I love that Isiah is totally killing this team. It actually makes me sleep well at night.........and sometimes during the day. Can't wait for John Starks to fall off a ladder and land on Alan Houston...would actually make my year.........
Petey,
Seriously, you should stop arguing. Like everyone from Portland has said, we've watched him play for the past four years. During that time, I've probably seen him play about 150 times. Yes, he is young, he can score, he can rebound (offensively), and he isn't a terrible person; however, he only scored 20 points per game because no one else on the team could shoot (until last year), his defense is poor at best (no weakside help, can't block shots, poor defensive rebounder, slow, doesn't block his men out of the lane), he has a huge contract, and isn't a team player. You saw one good game where he actually tried to take over to help them win, congratulations. That was one game; shouldn't a dominant player take over more games than that? BRoy had more game winning baskets last year than Zebo has had his entire career here in Portland.
Thank you for taking him. LAldridge, who is much better, will be able to play more now.
Randolph was dominant only in that the offense ran through him the last couple years in Portland so he'd get the ball every possession. I'd argue that other teams didn't double team him because of his dominance, but rather because he isn't very good at passing out of doubles. ZBo gets his shot blocked more than any other player in the league and his rebound #s are inflated because of how often he takes 2-3ft putback shots from before finally getting it in the hoop. He also began to fall in love with the outside shot last season, even taking a lot more threes. (which after seeing that happen to Cliffy and Sheed makes rip city shudder)
He was the core of Portland's offense the past couple years, but even on his big nights he had to shoot a ton of shots to get the points. Guys like Kobe and Duncan and Arenas get hot and go for 40+ on 25 shots. Randolph needed forty shots to get 40 points last year. That's not dominance, that's persistence.
Curious to see how the Knicks do this season with Zach and Curry. Will those two avg more than 4 assists and 1 block together? They definitely got more talent out of this deal, but Portland got salary relief, Frye, and James Jones by way of NY's exception.
m814k
m814k
Comments closed July 13, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
"Meanwhile, Portland either has a lot of faith in Channing Frye as a prospect, or else very little faith in Randolph. I tend to think it must be the former"
I think it's the latter.
"even if they were absolutely desperate to rid themselves of Randolph he seems to me like a guy that more than one team would be interested in getting their hands on."
Big contract. Recent microfracture surgery. Dubious character.
If Randolph implodes in some manner, he'll eat up all of a team's tax space. And he seems to have a higher than normal chance of imploding.
As a high risk player, he's perfect for either NY or Dallas, the two teams that are willing to financially bury their mistakes.
Posted by Petey | June 29, 2007 9:17 AM