| 5 Steps to a Successful Season - Part 2 |
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| Written by Chip Crain |
| Thursday, 03 September 2009 07:29 |
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This is the second part of a 5 part series on what the Grizzlies need to accomplish to reach a level of success in the league. The first part dealt with the understanding of what faces the franchise. Wthout understanding what legitimate progress looks like it will be difficult to appreciate it when it arrives. Today we start to deal with what people can see on the court and the most obvious thing that has to be successful is Zach Randolph.  Zach Randolph will need to show the maturity he has talked about this off-season but rarely shown in his career. Randolph turned pro after his freshman year at Michigan State and was a promising up and coming player when his rookie contract was renegotiated. He had just completed his first season as a starter in Portland and had won the league's Most Improved Player award after averaging 20.1 ppg and 10.5 rpg. The large contract (6 yrs and $84 million) seemed to distract him. That happens when young men who never had a lot of money previously suddenly find themselves guaranteed millions and millions of dollars. Off the court Randolph looked like a person who didn't know how to handle the money and notoriety that came with his new found celebrity. He punched teammate Ruben Patterson once and cracked his eye socket during a practice. He also punched Louis Amundsen during a game just last season.  Speaking of last season very soon after the Randolph trade was finalized a man claimed that Randolph beat him up in a pizza parlor earlier in the year. While this has not been confirmed the fact that it was alledged puts a cloud over Randolph's arrival in Memphis. If Randolph is going to help be a steadying influence on the young Memphis Grizzlies team he has to stop getting into similiar predictaments and focus on being a leader on and off the court. But not all is rosy even on the court with Zach. Randolph's detractors call him a black hole on offense who takes bad shots instead of hitting the open man. This isn't really fair considering he did average more assists than Rudy Gay did last season but he isn't exactly a power forward who looks to teammates for passes either. Randolph's assist total last season was his second best as a pro after all. Then again Randolph's assist total actually went up in LA over New York. His 2.3 assists per game were well within norms for a power forward in the NBA. After all, when Randolph gets the ball down low you don't want him to start looking around for someone to kick it out to. You want him to use that wide body to get to the hoop and score. Compare the 2.3 apg Randolph averaged with the Clippers last season to the combination of Rudy Gay and Hakim Warrick for the Grizzlies and you might be a bit surprised. Randolp alone nearly averaged as many assists a night as Hak and Rudy combined (2.5) and he did it in a lot fewer minutes. So Randolph's assist numbers have been improving (and are far better than David Lee or Paul Milsaps by the way) but the black hole also refers to the amount of shots he forces up. His FG efficiency is not what you would expect from a big time PF scorer. Randolph has only hit 48% or more of his field goal attempts twice in his career and that was early in his time at Portland. However he did hit 48.7% of his attempts with the Clippers. If he can maintain that FG% and assists while still hitting the boards at a double figure clip then the Grizzlies should be a dangerous team to play on any given night. Next UP: Rudy Gay's Development |
Comments
But his defense alternates between disinterested and atrocious.
My question is, why sign him when, as far as I can tell, Darius Miles is still available. He is fully back in playing shape, isn't he?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2fn01cngg
or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A13PKLR-HyY
or just for the fun of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFHhoynAgc8