Is Zach Randolph playing for the New York Knicks a bad idea?

Yes

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by Chase Kell

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If you think about the present state of the New York Knicks, it is hard to think of anything as a "good idea." Is it a good idea to continue to employ a head coach in need of a serious attitude adjustment, one who has recently been convicted of sexually harassing a co-worker? Is it a good idea that this defunct head coach allows his supposed "star point guard" to return to the team two days after he abandoned his team mates in a heavily reported locker room debacle? Is it a good idea that the Knicks organization, the most prestigious in the NBA and one of the most illustrious organizations in professional sport this side of the globe, remains stagnant as the team's "joke of the NBA" status continues to snowball?

As the perils continue to mount, and the threat of more near 50-point losses remains imminent, to say it is difficult to place the Knicks and the word "good" in the same sentence is a grand understatement.

Yet despite not giving fans many reasons to cheer in the past decade, the home town crowd erupted in support as NBA commissioner David Stern approached the stand to announce the Knicks acquisition of Zach Randolph during this summer's entry draft. To this very day I wonder if the Madison Square Garden faithful were cheering the acquisition of Randolph, or the ridding of their favorite scapegoat in Steve Francis? Either way, the Knicks had added one of the league's best low post scoring threats, and the sun seemed to be rising in the dark streets of New York. But I wasn't convinced.

There is a very large line that separates great talent from a winner. What makes Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs such a great player is not only his world class talent, but his desire to win, even if it means taking a back seat to certain teammates with the hot hand. Referring to the prototypical sports clich, winning is everything, but a fan of the NBA can't help but notice that some players feel this way more than others. Zach Randolph is a great talent, a double-double machine. But if I am Isiah Thomas I have to ask myself, does a guy who frequently visited a local strip club in Portland because of the three-dollar breakfast posses a winning attitude?

This is exactly what has made the New York Knicks look more like a high school guidance office as opposed to a professional franchise. There are too many issues, too any headaches, too many loose canons and not enough motivation. They continue to do their best to make their team look great on paper, with little recognition of how that talent will translate on the court. There is a very good reason why the Chicago Bulls were desperately shopping Eddy Curry, beyond his documented heart troubles. It is more than a coincidence that every team Stephan Marbury has been traded from instantly improved, while every team he was traded to simply struggled until he left. There is a great reason why the Portland Trail Blazers chose not to rebuild their team around the likes of Zach Randolph, and it is not because of an overloaded frontcourt after drafting young studs like LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden.

Consider all of these ingredients and add in a head coach whose idea of leading by example is ass grabbing and demeaning the women in the office, and what you have is a stew of selfish negligence and border line criminalization. Hardly what anyone would consider a winning recipe.

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