36-year-old Zach Randolph is the Kings’ offensive star

The Sacramento Kings are one of the worst teams in the NBA. They have the league’s lowest net rating to go along with a 10-20 record. This won’t be the year they return to the playoffs, but that was expected. A core of first- and second-year players were supposed to be Sacramento’s focus.

Some of that has held true, as Buddy Hield has had his moments and De’Aaron Fox has been up-and-down. One player, however, has truly stood out, just as nobody anticipated. At 36 years old, the ball is revolving around Zach Randolph.

That was the case in the Kings’ 101-95 win over the Joel Embiid-less Sixers. Randolph poured in 27 points in 26 minutes on 12-of-19 shots.

Few have been paying attention to his game since his move to Sacramento, but he’s been on fire all season.

It makes little sense given the lack of talent surrounding him, but Z-Bo is outperforming some of his 20-something seasons.

Scoring 15 points per game, Randolph is sinking 51 percent of shots from the field, and 36 percent from deep. That’s really good! He’s only shot greater than 50 percent in one other season (when he was 21), and better than 30 percent from deep on at least one shot per game in one other season as well.

His effective field goal percentage stands at 54.4 percent, which is 43rd in the league, per Team Rankings. That’s better than J.J. Redick, Will Barton, LaMarcus Aldridge, Jimmy Butler, and countless others he probably shouldn’t be ahead of.

Randolph is aging gracefully with the knowledge he can’t be the same Grit N Grind undersized big he was in Memphis. He’s averaging just seven rebounds, after all. So, like so many undersized bigs, including Detroit’s Tobias Harris, Randolph has found the power of taking more three-point shots.

He’s taking a career-high in attempts per game, at 2.3 per game (he’s only taken more than 1.5 one other time), and he’s hitting them at a 36 percent clip.

Teams don’t respect him yet.

They should! After 59 attempts on the year, this stroke seems maintainable.

Randolph is very much himself still, and he has every right to be if he keeps performing like this. HIs fire still very much fuels his game.

Two weeks ago, in a game he dropped 35 points in, he talked trash to DeMarcus Cousins. Lining up at the free-throw line, he said, “Where I’m from bullies get bullied. In my hood bullies get bullied.”

Incredible!

In that same game, the two went one-on-one long after the whistle blew.

There may still be plenty of good Randolph years left, and that’s something we weren’t as sure of last season. The three-point line really can be the fountain of youth.

The Kings made a quality move signing him to a two-year contract.