Last week Kevin Garnett moved to Boston and effectively created a new power seat in the Eastern Conference. But as bookies adjusted the Celtics’ championship odds, and as pundits gushed over the Allen/Garnett/Pierce triumvirate, few people noted the trade’s impact on what, just 24 hours earlier, had been the East’s largest off-season deal: Zach Randolph to New York.
If you ever needed proof that karma has a way of coming back to bite you, look no further than the New York Knicks’ Zach Randolph. All was well and good in Z-Bo’s world, with a new team, new strip-club options and a place in the Eastern Conference where he was a shoe-in to make his first All-Star appearance. Then Kevin Garnett chose Beantown over Minnesota, effectively dumping the water of a thousand lakes onto Z-Bo’s All-Star aspirations.
When Randolph was traded to New York, everyone associated with the deal felt warm and fuzzy. The Trailblazers saved $30 million, even after buying Steve Francis out of his contract. The Knicks got the NBA’s only 23-and-10 guy on their frontline. Z-Bo was out of the power forward-heavy Western Conference and all but assured to head for All-Star Weekend. A win-win-win situation, right? Yes, but….
Z-Bo had worn out his welcome in Portland after being charged with driving under the influence of marijuana, being investigated for (but never charged with) sexual assault, and making the bone-headed move of visiting a strip club on his way to family bereavement leave. You just knew those things had to come back and bite him. And they did last week, when Kevin Garnett joined Z-Bo in the East.
Just like that, Z-Bo was once again under the shadow of a Western Conference star. Just like that, Z-Bo would need a career-best year to even have a shot at starting in the All-Star game. And just like that, all his mischievous deeds and bad karma came back to haunt him.
I’ve never been a big Z-Bo fan, but I was actually excited to see him go to the Eastern Conference, where he’d have a good shot at the All-Star game. For all of his faults, Randolph is a good offensive player who had been overlooked far too long in the West. With less frontline competition in the East, it appeared Randolph was finally going to have his talent recognized.
So KG moving to Boston just dripped with irony. Garnett was one of the key reasons Randolph never made the West’s frontline-heavy All-Star squad, and by moving east like a cloud over Z-Bo’s career, Garnett once again dashed Randolph’s hopes of becoming an All-Star starter. At least Randolph can be comforted knowing it wasn’t his fault. After all, that’s just how karma works: after all those missteps in Portland, it was bound to come back and bite him sometime. Hmm, on second thought, maybe it was his fault.
