While echoing the Post’s Marc Berman in praise of Eddy Curry’s recent weight loss, Newsday’s Alan Hahn chats to recent Knicks acquisition Zach Randolph whom he characterizes as a sweat-drenched “work-a-holic”.
After practice, Randolph lost a three-point shooting contest with Jared Jordan and gave Jared the 20 pushups he owed him. But don’t take that as a sign he can’t shoot. Zach has a great stroke, soft touch on the ball. Weird body, not very fluid in his movement, but a terrific shooter with three-point range. Expect to see him a lot up foul-line extended and in the corners, spreading that defense away from Curry down low.
Despite the trouble back home — his grandmother, Lettie, is on dialysis and not doing well — he’s been in great spirits. He even had good things to say about his former team, the Portland Trail Blazers.
“I love Paul Allen,” he said. “They have great guys . . . It was my time to move on. Sometimes a player needs a fresh start. They had Lamarcus [Aldridge] playing forward and they got the No. 1 draft pick, so they tried to kick me to the curb. But, you know what? It™s all good. I™m happy for them.”
But he couldn’t help adding, œIf I were the GM, I would have kept me and Oden.
Why didn™t they want you?
“Ask Kevin Pritchard.”
The Fanhouse’s Matt Watson links to a Newark Star-Ledger report claiming the Nets’ lame duck venue, Continental Breakfast Airlines Arena will soon be known as the Izod Something-Or-Other. So much for my dreams of someday attending a gig at the Mutha Records Party Pavillion.
Maybe it was the whole anally raping a passed out woman thing Zach. Just a guess.
Not to mention the fact (quietly reported in the Oregonian, carefully interpreted by Henry Abbott and finally put with total bluntness by Tom Ziller) that Brandon Roy requested he be moved.
Pritchard loves to talk about how high he is on Channing Frye, and how important the trade exception that got him James Jones was, to say nothing of the cap relief from the Francis buyout. But overall what the deal says is not “the Blazers didn’t get enough for Z-Bo” but rather, “here’s what kind of value that the Blazers put on Z-Bo.”