In the Prime of His Tumultuous Career, Randolph Taking Grizzlies to New Heights

Zach Randolph is finally with a team that wants him, and he has rewarded the flourishing Grizzlies with another double-double season. (AP Photo/Mark Weber)

In his eight-year career, Zach Randolph has been a Jail Blazer, a cast-off, a cancer, dead weight, and a bad contract.

What he hasn’t been is appreciated despite these labels.

After getting acclimated to the league by minimally producing his first two years, he jumped onto the scene during the 2003-04 season, averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds while missing just one game. He followed that superb campaign with three similarly productive seasons and, while averaging 20 points and 9.5 rebounds over that four-year span, he solidified his role as an under-the-radar double-double machine.

The 2006-07 campaign, was his best as a member of the team, but this was no longer his team. Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge were acquired during the previous June’s draft and were immediately ready to take the reigns. So, given his tiresome attitude, disrupting actions off the court, and the fact that the Blazers were in makeover mode, his best was his last: Portland traded him and the four years and $60 million left on his contract.

His atrocious, albeit deserved, deal was thought to be un-tradeable. Leave it the Knicks to take on such a heft contract and a player who didn’t have a defensive mindset.

Worse yet they paired him with Eddy Curry, who was almost the exact same player, in their frontcourt. This experiment lasted 69 games of the 2007-08 season and 11 games of the next, with Randolph averaging 19 points and 11 rebounds during his short tenure with New York. Randolph, only 26 at the time, still had 3 years and over $40 million left on his contract.

In those first 11 contests of the 2008-09 season, Randolph averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds. Despite his dependability on offense and on the boards, surely no one would be willing to take his contract off the Knicks hands, right?

Well, here’s where another unsurprising candidate emerged for his services: the Los Angeles Clippers. New York and Los Angeles, in my opinion were and still are two of the worst run franchises in the NBA. And therefore two teams that could easily derail Randolph’s career. Luckily for him, his stint with the Clippers, a team that already had Marcus Camby and Chris Kaman anchoring their front line, lasted only 39 games.

During his cup of coffee with Donald Sterling and Mike Dunleavy Jr.’s Clippers, he continued to put up All-Star caliber numbers, averaging 20 points and 9 rebounds while also shooting 48 percent, the best field goal percentage since his second year. Still just 27 years old, Randolph was traded that offseason to the Memphis Grizzlies for Quentin Richardson, a streaky shooter with an equally bad contract.

Memphis was the place for him to shine and do so long term. Unlike the once-badly run Blazers, and the still-badly run Knicks and Clippers, the Grizzlies were stocked with young talent, on the rise, and didn’t have a ignorant and unintelligent front office.

Twenty-one-year-old Mike Conley Jr. manned the point with fellow 21-year-old Ovinton J’Anthony Mayo and 22-year-old Rudy Gay on the wings. Rounding out the starting five was center Marc Gasol, a 25-year-old center once traded to Memphis for his brother, Pau Gasol.

On top of their excellent crop of proven youth Memphis stacked up through the draft, selecting center Hasheem Thabeet and forwards Sam Young and Demarre Carroll. Randolph, in my opinion, was on his dream team.

Remarkably, Randolph had never been an All-Star entering this season, which was a downright crime committed by the fans and coaches who vote. He had been on three bad teams, which was reason for his yearly snubs, but the Grizzlies would not be his fourth.

The team started out extremely slow, losing eight of its first nine games but, anchored by Randolph, they have come on strong and now own a winning record of 26-22, which, in the Western Conference, is only 10th best.

Their biggest and most recent win of the season was against the mighty Los Angeles Lakers, a nail-biting 95-93 victory that epitomized the growth of Randolph into a leader and the growth of the once woeful Grizzlies.

Conley, Gasol, and Mayo combined to score 27 points on 8-25 shooting, but Randolph would not let their performances down his team, scoring 22 points on an efficient 9-18 shooting and racking up 17 rebounds. He hit a long two at the shot-clock buzzer with just over a minute left to take the lead for good and tallied 8 points and 6 rebounds while playing all 12 minutes of the fourth quarter.

This tremendous performance wasn’t anything new for Randolph, who was selected to his first All-Star game this season. He has 32 double-doubles already this year and is averaging 20 points and 11 rebounds on 50 percent shooting. He has been putting up these numbers throughout his already long career, but the 28-year-old Randolph is now getting the respect and recognition he has always deserved as the backbone of his first good team.

Now he is no longer troubled, a bad contract, a cancer, a cast-off, or dead weight. Now, he is not only somewhere where he is welcome, he is also a great player on a up-and-coming Grizzlies team.