Anna Griffin provides a good read on Randolph in today's Oregonian. He's only playing garbage minutes for the Blazers, but once he shook off a bit of rust, you could see that the guy has talent. Nine points in 8.5 minutes, even in garbage time, isn't bad. http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2009/02/shavlik_randolph_keeping_faith.html
I don't know - he had a lot of point-blank looks that he managed to either miss completely or get rejected by smaller defenders. It was a rough garbage time period. His free throws were VERY ugly.
When guys don't play all year and then get thrown into the mix it's pretty hard to take anything away from a game like that, plus he also got his 'shooting' shoulder wrenched right before having to make those free throws, so I wouldn't read too much into that either. I know Shavlik was slotted to be Philly's starting power forward a couple of years ago before he had that devastating ankle injury, so he obviously must have a little bit of talent, and I remember watching him play a couple of times in pre-season and he looked not half bad ... though my expectations were pretty low of a fifteenth man. Who knows, maybe there's more to his game than we've seen and proves worth keeping as a backup; he'd certainly be a little more inside oriented than Channing and probably cheaper.
I don't think he's that bad, but I think KP needs to address our backup PF position this offseason. Channing doesn't cut it, and Shavlik is a 15th man. Besides adding a SF this offseason, hopefully we can grab a Carl Landry-esque backup PF.
Now that the trade deadline is over, I'm wondering why Shavlik isn't getting time as the backup PF. Anyone who saw him in preseason had to be pretty impressed. He hustles, can handle the ball, shoot and has good body control around the rim. I would much rather see him in the game than Frye. My guess is the Frye is filling in at the 5, and S-bo really can't do that. Maybe they are just trying to keep Aldridge purely at the 4.
The reason his free throws were bad, was because his shoulder got wrenched from behind from Fred Jones cheap-shots. Just like he almost threw travis down. the guy was PISSED his team was getting worked.
Well... there was that preseason game where he was 9-9 from the field with 19 points and 10 boards. Not bad for a scrub.
why he doesnt play instead of frye is beyond me. frye makes his 20 ft jumper occasionally but cant rebound, has bad hands, never gets an oboard and just fouls. randolph at least provides hustle and tip in. why bayless doesnt play ahead of sergio is beyond me. . last night segio starts 2nd qtr and we cant score. kinda like when blake was hurt. his defense stinks and he cant finish. bayless is starting to shoot better and gets in the paint which means free throws. not sure why serio plays. hes really an awful player.
..."awful" in THIS offense [I have to imagine that he would thrive in a more up-tempo running offense]
I was at the game (intoxicated by the time Shav entered the game) . . . he did not look good through my beer googles. From what I saw he had has very little elevation and can't power through players when he has the ball down low. But it is good to hear that my perception of Shav may have been wrong and I did see him hustling and trying to bang down low. I hope there is something to him, because after yesterday, I figured he was as good as gone this off season.
Shav is a stud. He should be getting all the minutes at back-up 4. He outplayed both Fryre and Diogu in preseason, and continues to be insanely productive in his very limited minutes. I mean, look at these numbers: PER = 35.6 PTS/36 = 33.8 REB/36 = 15.8 FG% = 0.636 TS% = 0.631 eFG% = 0.682 ORB% = 38.0 TRB% = 27.3 BNM
Minus the beer goggles, I agree with you. He is SLOW. Sergio dumped a beautiful little bounce pass to him completely alone under the hoop, but by the time he gather himself to dunk it he was completely swarmed. And this is by Clippers - the least swarmy-creature on earth. The reason he got so many shots was (a) because he got a few offensive rebounds (fair enough) but (b) because Blazers were force-feeding the ball to him out of pity (not so good).
His minutes were garbage time minutes, but I agree with the idea. He comes in and can be quite productive in a short time. The only argument for Frye is that he can come in at the 5, and S-Bo would be questionable in that role.
Cat's out of the bag. Was hoping Nate was keeping him under-wraps for the playoffs - to go un-scouted. There goes the neighborhood...
Definitely a small sample size, but Shavlik was also very productive in preseason. Yes, it's just garbage time and preseason. OK, I get that. But if it's so easy to produce like this in preseason and garbage time, why doesn't Frye do it? Why didn't Ike do it? Why doesn't every 15th man in the league have a PER of 35.6? The truth is Shavlik has produced whenever he's been given the opportunity to play. Will he continue to produce at the same rate with more minutes? No. But, I still think he can produce at least as much, and probably more, than Frye if given his minutes. Seems worth a try to me. It's not like he could play much worse than Frye has. BNM
Shav was all right in garbage time against the scrubs of a scrub team. I wouldn't mind seeing though what he can do in meaningful PT. He's a better player than I think the general fan thinks. When he went in yesterday, everyone around me in my section was just laughing and waiting for him to mess up. He's certainly better McRoberts. I wouldn't mind seeing him get a 4-5 minute stint over Channing in the second quarter.
