Oden Days | Zach to the Future?

As expected, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant went 1 and 2 respectively at last night’s 2007 NBA Draft. Bigger news on the local scene, however, was the Knicks acquiring Portland’s talented, troubled PF Zach Randolph in exchange for sophomore SF Channing Frye (a good player, but he slumped considerably last year) and veteran “superstar” PG Steve Francis (a wildly overpaid underachiever with an awful, bloated contract — I can’t believe Portland took him, frankly.) All in all, I’m pretty happy with this trade. Randolph’s clearly a bit of a loon, and a cluttered Randolph-Curry frontcourt makes about as much sense as the Marbury-Francis backcourt — it’s a fantasy team line-up with no sense for team chemistry. How are Marbury, Crawford, or Robinson going to drive into the paint with both Curry and Randolph drawing double-teams in the low post, and no real shooters to spread the floor? Still, losing Francis was addition by subtraction, and, while’s Randolph’s contract is also pretty hefty ($61 million over 4 years) at the very least, Randolph is still young. (The move was definitely better than the Celtics’ obvious panic-trade for Ray Allen. I love Jesus Shuttlesworth, but shooting guards over 30 — particularly those who just had two ankle surgeries — age in dog years, and he, like Pierce, has a tendency to disappear sometimes.)