So, what price success?
That’s a question many teams, including the Bulls, figure to be asking themselves with the results of the NBA draft lottery Tuesday awarding the No. 1 draft pick, certainly Ohio State’s Greg Oden, to the Portland Trail Blazers.
His selection means the first low-post domino to be available this coming off-season — and they could include Pau Gasol, Jermaine O’Neal, Amare Stoudemire and Kevin Garnett — certainly will be Portland’s Zach Randolph.
He sounds like a perfect match for a team like the Bulls, a 6-foot-9-inch, 270-pound player with a rare, classic post-up game and outside shot. He averaged 23.6 points and 10.1 rebounds per game last season, but with Oden and last year’s No. 1 pick, LaMarcus Aldridge, there certainly is no room for Randolph in Portland. His time there was rumored to be up anyway, no matter whom the team would get in the draft.
The first order of business for the Trail Blazers, now that they can have Oden, will be to see if they can trade for his high school and college buddy, point guard Mike Conley Jr.
That probably would require a trade with the Atlanta Hawks, who have the No. 3 pick and a need for a point guard. They already have floated suggestions they might take Conley.
The Trail Blazers have Georgia Tech point guard Jarrett Jack. Perhaps there could be a deal by packaging him with Randolph and a future No. 1. Big-time agent Billy Duffy has been rumored for weeks to be working on uniting the pair no matter where Oden goes. Duffy is working with Conley and his father, who is acting as the agent for his son and Oden.
The most recent talk has the Trail Blazers trying to trade Randolph to the Washington Wizards, who are in desperate need of interior scoring. Perhaps in a multiteam deal with Atlanta? Antawn Jamison, who’s going into his final contract season with the Wizards, could be part of a deal to offset Randolph’s $13.3 million salary for next season.
Yes, Randolph’s statistics and game are appealing, even if he tends to stop the ball with his back-in dribble. But he still is due an average of $16 million per season for three more seasons.
His salary, though, could take a team out of the potential sweepstakes after the 2009-10 season when LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade can become free agents.
Sure, there have been troubled players who have succeeded, like Rasheed Wallace with the Pistons and Dennis Rodman with the Bulls.
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But this, according to newspaper reports over the years, is what you also get with Randolph:
*1995. Thirty days in juvenile detention for shoplifting.
*High school years: Thirty days of house arrest for battery.
*Thirty days in juvenile detention for receiving stolen property, a gun.
*2002. Underage drinking arrest in Marion, Ind., his hometown.
*2003. Team suspension by the Trail Blazers for sucker-punching teammate Ruben Patterson in practice and breaking his eye socket.
*2003. 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. Suspended by the Trail Blazers for making obscene gestures to fans after a game in Indiana.
*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.
*2007. 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.
It all reminds you of the wonderful scene from the Bill Murray movie “Stripes” when the characters played by Murray and Harold Ramis are undergoing the Army enlistment process and the recruiter asks if they were ever convicted of a felony.
Murray pauses considerably and says, “Convicted? Not convicted.”
I don’t know Zach Randolph and I don’t know what he has done or hasn’t done. His missteps all could be cases of mistaken identity. As the saying goes, “All I know is what I read in the newspaper.”
There’s no doubt Randolph will be the first traded this off-season, though it technically could run into July with financial rules. There’s no doubt he can give a team 20 points and 10 rebounds every game.
But at what cost? Or what value?
There always are desperate teams, and Washington sounds like one. Heck, with what they have had going on with Brendan Haywood, the self-proclaimed heavyweight champion of Wizards’ centers, and Etan Thomas, Randolph could be a relief. Perhaps, like Rasheed Wallace, all he needs is to get out of that brutal Portland environment. It could be all the natural grains and narcissistic runners. That would give any of us plenty of indigestion. It seems there’s always a catch.
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