Word on the street is that Zach Randolph will be named a 2010 Western Conference All-Star for the first time in his career when the coaches’ selections for reserves are announced tonight. The interesting question is, what has Z-Bo done differently this year to break the drought and get the nod?
Funnily enough, it’s hard to identify a mammoth-sized leap anywhere across his statistics this season, with reference to the rest of his career. Let’s take a look at things, across the board.
SCORING
Randolph is averaging 20.9ppg this season with the Grizzlies in their shoot-shoot-shoot offence, which ranks fourth in the league in team ppg behind only the fast-paced Suns, Nuggets and Warriors. Funnily enough, that 20.9ppg is exactly the same as he averaged in his 39 games with the Clippers last season and pretty amazingly close to the 20.5ppg he put up in 11 games with the Knicks at the start of last season. 2007-08 with the Knicks was a much poorer 17.6ppg, whilst 2006-07 (his last with the Blazers) was a stat-padding 23.6ppg.
Looking at those same scoring numbers on a per 40 minute basis does not bring anything glaring to light, with his 22.5 points per 40min with the Grizz this season falling a little short of the 23.5 he put up last season.
Where Z-Bo certainly has improved is in his shooting percentages. He is shooting 50.3% from the field and has a true shooting percentage of 55.6% — both of which are the highest he has shot since his second season in the league. His 80.2% at the free throw line also bests any season percentage since his Portland days. So he is scoring more efficiently, if only marginally.
SHOT LOCATIONS
Oddly, the majority of Randolph’s shooting percentages from different locations on the floor have not improved or have not improved markedly, on previous seasons. His 60.0% at the rim is a quality mark, especially considering that he has also increased the number of shots he gets at the rim. This accuracy doesn’t beat his 64.0% with the Clips last season, but is better than the numbers he was putting up prior to that.
Looking at his percentages from less than 10 feet (48.1%) and 10-15 feet (30.5%) shows that he has not improved in those areas at all, however he has managed to take less shots from those distances — surely a sign of a veteran pro, picking and choosing his spots more smartly. He has improved his percentage from 16-23 feet (43.0%) on last season’s 37.0%, which is a handy weapon to have as well.
REBOUNDING
Randolph has always been a solid rebounder and this season has been no different. Whilst his defensive rebounding rate has not been as great as he has been in the past, grabbing a 21.8% of defensive rebounds available, he has massively picked up on his offensive rebounding. This season he averages 14.6% of available offensive rebounds, compared to 9.6% with the Clips, 10.9% (2008-09) and 9.0% (2007-08) with the Knicks and 10.0% with the Blazers (2006-07).
No doubt, when it comes to improvements in rebounding and shots at the rim, a large portion of thanks must go to Marc Gasol for clearing out space for Z-Bo. I know that Chris Kaman and Marcus Camby only combined for 93 games last season with the Clippers, but it makes you wonder what they were doing to not help Zach out in the same way.
Randolph’s 12.4 rebounds per 40 minutes is in the ballpark of what he has been doing for a long time — so no great improvements there. However his 4.9 offensive rebounds per 40 minutes was a big improvement and no doubt accounts for his increased shooting percentage at the rim.
PASSING
This is an area that Z-Bo has long been accused of failing in. In short, he is known as one of those black holes — once the ball goes in, it doesn’t come back. Not much has changed in that area. His 2.1 assists per 40 minutes in 2009-10 so far is not spectacular for a guy that gets as many touches as he does and it is actually worse than his last few seasons by about half an assist. On the other hand, where he has definitely improved is in his turnovers. His 2.2 turnovers per game (and 2.3 per 40 minutes) is his best performance since his sophomore year in the league — impressive stuff.
DEFENCE
Another area that Randolph is generally lacking is in stopping his opponents. Nothing much has changed in this respect either. His 0.9 steals, 0.4 blocks and the 0.1 charges drawn per 40 minutes are not impressing anyone and do not show any improvement on previous seasons.
OVERALL
Looking at those statistics across the board, there isn’t a great deal jumping out to indicate that Z-Bo has really stepped up his game this season and warranted the increased all-star attention that he is getting. He has improved his offensive rebounding and his scoring at the rim, whilst reducing his turnovers, but has either remained stagnant or regressed in other areas. This poses the question, has his all-star choice arisen purely because of the age-old bias towards winning teams? The Grizzlies are playing exciting basketball this season, scoring at a high rate and have been winning more than their fare share of games, despite not being able to swat a fly on the defensive end of the court.
Currently sitting seventh in the West and playing inspired basketball since the mini-milestone that was Allen Iverson’s departure from the squad, they have captured a fair bit of attention across the NBA landscape this season. That in turn led to quite a few people giving props to the man known as Z-Bo, the same man who has been scorned in the past as lazy and a destructive personality who finds himself in strip clubs as a place to grieve the loss of loved ones. Somehow he has avoided that negative stereotype in 2009-10 and has gained the respect of many NBA writers who have surmised that he has turned a corner.
The interesting thing is that Randolph is not, statistically at least, the biggest driving force behind this winning Memphis franchise. He does lead the team in scoring and rebounding, but Rudy Gay is only a smidgen behind him on the points front and Gasol does his fair share on the boards. The team has six players scoring in double figures this season due to their up-tempo pace AND the big numbers come when you look at the plus/minus numbers. The best performer this season by far has been Gasol, who has an aggregate +/- of +145, or 0.092 per minute. Second on the list is Gay with +101 overall and 0.061 per minute. Randolph comes in a clear third at +71 and 0.043. So deeming his play to be the sole cause of the success in Memphis would be erroneous from a statistical perspective.
Nonetheless, if the whispers are true, it seems we will see Z-Bo in an All-Star uniform in 2010. Whether he has significantly improved on his play on previous seasons is debatable, posing the obvious question, should he have been named an All-Star even sooner?
Thanks to the always useful Hoopdata for the statistical database.
The Basketball Jones
Check out who Skeets and Tas selected as their all-star reserves, in readiness for the actual NBA announcement tonight.
