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Bulls fan here. Just wondering your honest opinion of Randolph. He puts up good numbers wherever he goes, but doesn't seem to fit on anyone's team. What did you observe about him in the half season he was with you? Is he a valuable big man, or is he a bum?

He'd be a GREAT fit for the Bulls. Noah = pure defense. And theyve been screaming for a low post scorer since forever. I just posted a thread in which I entertained a trade idea with the Bulls: How about Randolph + something for Hinrich + Salmons?

jump wrote:Bulls fan here. Just wondering your honest opinion of Randolph. He puts up good numbers wherever he goes, but doesn't seem to fit on anyone's team. What did you observe about him in the half season he was with you? Is he a valuable big man, or is he a bum?

Tremendous player and an awful athlete. He can score from inside and outside, has amazing hands, and rebounds the ball well. He's willing to body up on D, but is in no way a good defender. He's also willing to run the floor, but seems unable to really elevate off of the floor. You can say what you want about him, but he thrived in D'Antoni's system before being traded. He's in shape, he just carries a lot of weight.

Zach is a natural rebounder and gifted scorer. He takes up a lot of space on both ends and can catch virtually any pass that comes his way (D. Rose). He has range out to 25 feet and is as good a shooter as almost any big man in the league. He's nonexistant on defense and can't be relied on to do anything on defense but rebound. Zach is the perfect 6th man, but I wouldn't want him playing more than 25 minutes on my team.

He 'fits' in fine on our team, I haven't heard of any chemistry issues.

But as loflin3hree5ive says, he's not a good defender. He's not a great athlete in general, which hurts him there even if he went all out on D.

I liked him in Portland, so I actually liked when we traded for him. He did well when he was healthy and had some bonehead issues here and there, but his play on the court speaks for itself. Here are the reasons why I would agree to part ways with him: his defense isn't so great; he's not the guy who finds an open man or a guy cutting to the basket; Camby and Kaman look out of position when they're on the floor with ZBo.

So, yes he is a solid contributor, but putting the right guys next to him may be harder than you think.

I guess you can say, he's not a guy that makes other players better. All-stars can do that. On the court or in the locker room. Randolph.. meh, but he sure knows how to get the ball in the hoop.

I don't think that he (Z-Bo the player) gets a fair shake. He does have his shortcomings (defense, passing, off the court drama and salary), but aside from those, he's not so bad. He's a talented scorer that has pretty good range for a big man. He plays below the rim. None of it is pretty, but it goes in and you pretty much expect to go in. As Loflin mentioned earlier, Z-Bo has excellent hands. He catches almost everything that is thrown his way. It does not matter if it's a bounce pass, no look pass, a pass with some heat, a bad pass, etc. He will catch it and convert.

Kaman got hurt in Randolph's first game with the team. Randolph quickly got promoted to starting line-up, and the line-up of Davis/Gordon/Thornton/Randolph/Camby was working for us. We were an above .500 team during a 15 game (or something like that) stretch before he was injured by Voskuhl. That may not sound like much, but it was pretty good when you consider how many games we won throughout the entire season.

It's really quite simple ... Randolph is a ball hog that doesn't play defense. His high school coach once said that everyday Zach is still alive is surprising and Tom Izzo said that he actually has an insatiable hunger to score. The pluses are that he's very difficult to defend and he is seemingly never afraid to take the last shot.

As far as I'm concerned, Clipper fans better hope it's not Lebron's year ... because, by my estimation, Randolph's only potential destination is Cleveland if they don't win in the finals (or even get there). He is a good second banana for Lebron because LBJ won't care how much he shoots ... and he will force teams to double team him to create more space. Plus, they have a good group of guys there that will take him in and hopefully that comrardarie will rub off on him.

Zach's problem is that he's a ball stopper. He can score but it's usually after a number of pumpfakes, jabsteps or just holding the ball. That alone effects team chemistry. That and his lack of defense make him severely overpaid. Think Antoine Walker with better rebounding.

Having said that, if put in the right system with the right coach he can be very valuable.

His offensive game is actually pretty good when he stays in character. Actually, I think his offensive game is better than Brand's was when he was here. He's a good rebounder as well, but the troubles of his game lie in his defensive lapses. It's almost as if he doesn't want to play defense, ever.

He's a #2 scoring option on a good NBA team.