The Anthony Randolph Project: Making “NBA Plays” With D-League Statistics

Anthony Randolph was not an efficient two-point scorer at LSU. Not even close. He hit .483 on two-pointers and .105 on 19 three-pointers. Not too many college stars go onto NBA greatness after hitting less than .515 on two-point FGs. In fact, no one has.

Randolph is right now a lesser version of Alan Henderson at the same age. Freshmen PFs who can’t knock down significantly more than 50 percent of their two-point shots aren’t likely to become anything more than a solid journeyman. The only All-Star in the group is (Antoine) Walker and he was more of a perimeter PF.

If you check out Weiland’s site (worth a look) and look at the group of poor shooting freshmen power forwards, it seems like a harsh critique—Chris Wilcox, Juwon Howard, and PJ Brown are the best of the bunch. Then again, Wilcox has developed into a solid contributor...on bad teams.

Hollinger and Eric Doehrr, who provided Draftexpress with a WinScore analysis of the draft, also highlighted Randolph’s high turnover rate of 3.0 turnovers per game. For all the talk of his potential to distribute the ball as a point forward, his assist to turnover ratio of .41—meaning he turns the ball over more twice as much as he makes an assist—is among the worst in the NCAA.

Ditto for his pure point rating, which is designed for point guards—but a red flag when you’re at the bottom of the country and entering the NBA draft.  Of course there are explanations for his poor ballhandling statistics. If you watch the games, you might notice that his handle can be a little loose in the open court. Occasionally when dribbling on the fast break he seems to have problems gathering the ball off the dribble and controlling it. Those awkward moments lead to bad passes—either out of bounds or creating an awkward catch for the receiver.  The turnover problem seems correctable, though it seems to be what separates Randolph from players like Lamar Odom or Tayshaun Prince—both of whom came into the league as much more mechanically refined ballhandlers. What Randolph has going for him is that his instincts for making NBA plays are advanced—his mechanics just need to catch up so that he can execute the things he wants to do more effectively.   Whether he overcomes these statistical flaws—as well as critiques about his focus—will depend on his work ethic. Of course, work ethic is something that we as fans can neither observe nor capture with statistics.

Some D-League time won't hurt.... 

In David Sparks’ graphical representation of draft prospects’ similarity to current NBA players, Randolph sort of floats in a space connected to marginal NBA talent.

In a way, it captures the difficulty of projecting Randolph's NBA effectiveness. So perhaps the best way to approach Randolph is to give him time to develop and not expect too much right away.

Randolph is a player whose stats are pretty ordinary for a prospect and showed no noticeable improvement during the season. He also has the type of athletic ability that can make a player a superstar.

I can understand a team falling for the raw talent and taking a flyer on such a player around pick No. 10-15. As long as they realize going in that this is a developmental pick who probably won’t make an impact until at least year 2 and probably later.

What I don’t understand is why any team would take such a player ahead of one who has demonstrated he’s on a par or above the best prospects of the past.

Of course, the Warriors did manage to grab sleeper Richard Hendrix with their second-round pick, who Weiland had ranked ahead of Randolph as the fifth ranked power forward. And for what it’s worth, I had Hendrix ranked as a mid-first round talent prior to the draft (not a star, but impressive rebounding ability).

So on balance, for a team that needed to improve their post play on offense and defense, the Warriors did quite well in the draft no matter what side of the Randolph debate you take, just by taking the talent that fell to them. Taking all of this into account, I see Randolph developing into an Andrei Kirilenko-type who is able to fill every category of the stat sheet. On draft night, I recall him saying that he wants rings and that he loves blocking shots. If his court intensity matches the determination within those comments, he indeed has an extremely high ceiling.

But he's not ready yet. In fact, the D-League may be the appropriate destination for Randolph in order to give him some time to refine his game and bulk up. If he participated in Warriors training camp and then went to the D-League for the regular season, adding some strength and refining his game, the Warriors may be better off in the long run.

Whether he becomes the All-Star level Kirilenko or the post-meltdown version will depend not only on his ability to put in the work, but the Warriors’ capacity to develop him along with the rest of their promising young core.

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