I’m on record as being opposed to the Grizzlies impending trade for Zach Randolph, and I’m not backing off that: I think his track record makes him too big of a gamble for a young team; I think his black-hole offense makes him a bad fit for a team trying to develop O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay as primary scorers; and I think his stationary defense will present match-up problems against the more mobile fours that are becoming the norm for the position.
Beyond that, a couple of other factors about the deal bother me: I think the Grizzlies gave up too early on a free-agent market that could start looking more and more like a buyer’s market as options dwindle. And I hate that the Clippers were able to hold out for a better deal (Quentin Richardson rather than Marko Jaric) for a player they had to get rid of and apparently no one else wanted.
All that said, I don’t want my skepticism to be mistaken for the arrogance of certainty. There are reasons to believe this deal might work out for the Grizzlies. Here are six of them:
1. Creeping Maturity?: Last week on The Geoff and Gary Show, Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski suggested that Randolph has matured. Could it be? Though Randolph’s on- and off-court rap sheet is long and colorful, most of it, including the most serious entries, happened earlier in his career while he was in Portland. True, Randolph’s Clipper tenure was marred by both a DUI arrest and a suspension for punching Suns’ forward Louis Amundsen. But the frequency and severity of his problems seems to have waned since leaving Portland. Hopefully the trend will continue.