Zach Randolph

The Kings's strategy last summer to pair their young talents with savvy veterans on reasonable contracts did not work, and has mostly been disbanded. Vince Carter has already walked as a free agent, George Hill was traded to the Cavaliers for nothing of note just to be free of his deal, and although Randolph remains, his position must be vulnerable. Randolph can still play - it is not as though he had vital mobility to lose, and the Shaqtin' A Fool-calibre three-point shooter of his past gave way to career-highs in attempts, makes and percentage last season, which if continued gives him some offensive value into his late 30s. Yet even if he does have a few seasons as a replacement-level offensive option still to give, there is not much reason to give them here in Sacramento.

Zach Randolph
PF, 6’9, 260lbs, 35 years old, 16 years of experience

On the plus side, Randolph last season rebounded better than he had done for the three years prior. On the down side, the shooting efficiency is tailing off, down to a .490% true shooting, his lowest since 2006., and he has not become a three-point shooter of note. In the new NBA, not being able to score efficiently, defend the rim at all or defend screen action should be a death knell. But Randolph can still contribute, through toughness and sheer bloody-mindedness. And maybe with a little bit of nostalgia in his favour as well. Worth giving a see-out-your-career-from-the-bench contract to.

Player Plan: Expiring $10,361,445 contract. With his play declining, the need to reload the roster and the cap situation around him being pretty intensely stacked, Randolph will need to take a discount from that figure, and sentimentality should not result in overpayments.

[...] Big men, who would otherwise be assigned the post, shoot threes now. Lord knows they have all long since wanted to. By way of example, Zach Randolph decided one day under the reign of Isiah Thomas in New York that he would cast start casting them up, despite a sub-30% success rate and the fact he was a 20/10 double-double guy around the rim at the time, while Tim Duncan and his famed resolution to never try and play outside of what he was capable of enjoyed the fact that he may have been voted into the 2002 All-Star Game as a de facto small forward because he felt it would allow to him “shoot more threes”. Big guys have always liked the novelty – see also, Dwight Howard in the All-Star game. But now, they actually do it. [...]

[...] The Grizzlies's roster is fairly young overall, but not the rotation, which is fairly old. Gasol is about to turn 29 and, when healthy, is at his career apex. Randolph is 32 and starting to slowly decline (although being so unreliant upon athleticism may make said decline a mercifully slow one). Allen is about to turn 32, while Prince is about to turn 34 and has lost his athleticism, jump shot and effectiveness. Mike Miller, the bench leader in minutes, is to turn 34 in a few weeks and is limited now to a one dimensional shooting specialist. The only rotation players to still be short of their primes are Conley (26), Bayless (25), Davis (24) and the sneaky-good Jon Leuer (24).

At the end of the season, Randolph has a player option he may use. Should he do so, and leave in free agency, that is likely the end of the Grizzlies' conference title competitiveness for the foreseeable future. At that point, the Grizzlies have an in-his-prime Gasol and an apexing Mike Conley, flanked only with a couple of decent role players and a host of rotation and offensive questions. But should Randolph opt out, but re-sign, Memphis is capped out in commitment to a declining team built to win in the short term without ever doing so.

In April 2011, Zach Randolph received a four year, $66 million extension that will pay him through the 2015 season. Notwithstanding the very valid arguments that a man who doesn't have any athleticism in the first place is going to decline slower than most, and that Memphis have to pay particularly big dollars in order to retain quality their quality players, it is unmistakably a big contract.

The contract called for a $15.2 million salary in 2011/12, a $16.5 million salary in 2012/13, a $17.8 million salary in 2013/14, and a $16.5 million salary in 2014/15, which is also a player option year. The vast majority of contracts around the league increase in their every year, yet, aside from a couple of particular instances (contracts signed with either rookie scale exception or the minimum salary exception), this doesn't have to be the case. Contracts can go up, down, stay flat, or some combination thereof, as freely as the signing parties so choose and if done in accordance with the acceptable parameters. (The maximum increase percentages are the same as the maximum decrease percentages.)

Zach's contract structure makes sense. The Grizzlies, clearly, are trying to reconcile their hefty salary bill in the coming few seasons with the fact that Zach's play will decline towards the back end of the deal, facts that the staggered contract structure seeks to partially alleviate. However, in doing so, they seem to have accidentally violated a CBA rule.

[more at the link]