ItsTheBlog™

For those of you not as acquainted with Zach Randolph's reputation, I'm going to forgo a narrative of his past discrepancies and just lay it out for you with the aid of my good friend and long-time fantasy facilitator, Yahoo! When you type a phrase into Yahoo! search with the auto-suggestion feature enabled (showing the most popular related searches), you get the following results:

I type: Zach Randolph (with an extra space at the end to imply continuance)
Yahoo! suggests: zach randolph arrest

No joke. Naysayers can try it at home. If this doesn't put his whole life in a text box, I don't know what does. The guy was, is, and always will be a cancerous thug who provides talent at the cost of team disunity, instability, and distrust. He is the last of a batch of bad apples that have plagued the Portland organization for years.

I suppose that categorizing the importance of Portland's priorities is a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Lack of talent is one kind of poison. But it is a poison that has antidotes: trade for guys that can ball, hire coaches capable of developing raw players, etc... Lack of character, on the other hand, is a different type of toxin. It has no antidote! Lack of talent doesn't rub off on and infect other players; lack of character does. Lack of talent doesn't yield fines, suspensions and ejections; lack of character does.

This all said, he did have an above-average season last year, and carries some significant trade value. I think their weakest position in their starting lineup has to be their 3 spot, where they currently list Ime Udoka as their starter. Since they drafted Oden just a little over an hour ago, Portland will have solid talent at the other starting positions (Jarrett Jack, Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Greg Oden). If they can manage to trade Randolph for an experienced, playoff-tested, well-respected swingman, I think they have a roster ready to compete with nearly any team in the league. Richard Jefferson of the New Jersey Nets seems to fit this description perfectly in my mind. The lawless disregard for authority and ethics exuded by Randolph's presence would be replaced with a solid, silent-but-deadly leader who has seen his share of post-season action and could be an example on and of the court for not only the rest of the team, but to the city of Portland as well.

Now at this point you may be asking why it is necessary to trade for an G/F when you had the chance to draft one in Kevin Durant. The answer is simple: scorers need more experience in the league to develop an effective game. The Blazers are far better off having drafted a big body that can jump through the roof and dominate the paint on both ends of the floor and bringing in an already-established scorer/slasher than they would have had waiting for their potential star to develop with the current front line they already have.

Plus, drafting Oden makes it necessary to trade Randolph. And that's the best thing that could ever happen to that franchise.