I'm pretty sure this debate has been and will be a topic for a few more years. After watching La V. Memphis, why was drafting Gay such a bad thing or not the right move? Yes I know about the 50 wins last year. Yes I know about the the 22 game win streak this season. Yes I know about Shane possibly being a d-mvp, but what is undersold is the rapid development of Gay and the lack of a quality 3rd scorer for the Rox. To see some of the plays that the guy makes is a sight to see. Everyone will point to the notion that anyone can put up numbers on a bad team. I can agree with some of that, but there have been plenty of instances when a guy comes from a losing team to a winner and is recognized for his skill. Watching the rapid progress of a superior athelete understand the game of hoops is a thing to see. Watching Gay boost his avg from 10 to 19 is the largest jump ever in the history of the nba. If you want to tell me that u don't want to rely on a rookie last yr like Gay, go find the veteran swingman to play behind or back him up. Imagine how much easier the game would come to him playing wit Tracy and Yao. The Rox has a chance unlike many have ever had to return th core of a 50 win team and get a high lotto pick. 2 yrs later and 2 50 win season and we still have doubts and haven't found the 3rd guy. We post threads about mike miller, artest and whomever else, but we had the guy in our grasps. We had a guy that could play 3 fiddle, but could elevate to 2nd if one of our stars went down. This team would be set for the next few yrs with fewer question marks than they do now. This isn't to discount shane, but their are a lot of guys that do what shane do and didn't cost teams #9 lotto pick plus a player. James Posey and Raja Bell are the same stype of guys that didn't have such a high ransom. To make matters worse we get fed this bs about looking forward and being flexible. Its kinda hypocritical to me. How can u say ur looking forward when u traded a lotto pick 20 yrs old for a 28 yrs old limited player? I know the old jvg saying 15 or 50 wins, but that's like saying Shane kept the rox from the lotto. Where was shane when tracy went out last yr and the team was 0-7? Its going to always be a topic until the rox make it to the finals or maybe win it all. Anytime the rox enter the playoffs and is eliminated because the dependency on rafer,chuck, or shane and we fail, people are going to look at that trade. If the guy becomes a consistent all star and Tracy or Yao is gone in a couple of years, its going to look worse. This isn't a knock on shane because he is a good player, but watching play kinda makes me wonder how much better would this team be?
Let's hear it then. If we had Gay on the roster instead of Shane, and we had to suffer through the same injuries, how many wins do you think we'd have right now through 72 games? We should make it a poll: (a) <30 wins (b) 30-34 wins (c) 35-39 wins (d) 40-44 wins (e) 45-49 wins (f) 50-54 wins (g) 55+ wins I say (d).
what if tmac and yao never had injuries........... what if we didn't waste our time with pippen ........... what if the 80s team didn't have off the court problems............. you can probably add rudy gay to that after he becomes a perennial all-star but we need shane for NOW.
shane battier is NOT gay. j/k i mean, they're really unrelated. we're not drafting gay if the battier trade didn't go through. so we can talk about rudy gay, just like we can talk about how we almost got roy. but leave battier out of the picture. he's really have nothing to do with gay.
BTW, if Rudy Gay was our starting SF instead of Shane, who guards the opposing team's best perimeter player?
you have a great point. HOWEVER, gay would not be as valuable to us if yao went down. he and tmac are the same type of player. you take yao out of there, it's going to be like carmelo and ai but worse. and we've seen how shaky the nuggets play D. without battier on the roster, tmac would be forced to play the best offensive player on the other team, further expending his energy and risking further injury. you may ask well what happened in 04-05 when shane wasn't there? Surprisingly, wesley was assigned to play kobe at times and usually assigned to play the star sgs. Also, tmac of 04-05 was a healthy tmac...now he's a shadow of his former self. People don't keep reiterating the fact that battier is a glue guy and a great player to have on a team for nothing. He IS our best defender, he makes our defensive calls, he IS the best weakside help defender in the league. But you know what I can say is that I wish we had battier and gay together haha. Gay would have been valuable in the utah series since kirilenko is not an offensive threat. But with teams like san antonio, gs, denver, los angeles, pretty much any playoff team with a star sg, gay is not as valuable as battier.
The OP asks how much better the Rockets would be with Rudy Gay instead of Shane Battier. I've actually been asking himself a slightly different question of late. How much better would the Grizzlies be with Shane Battier instead of Rudy Gay? Because they sure as hell can't get much worse.
only why the rox drafted rudy gay was to get shane battier i remember JVG saying they actually wanted thabo sefolosha
If tracy didn't have to set everyone up and handle the ball the most, he could go back to being one of the better defenders in the league. Is Shane any better than Posey? My point is u always need a guy like Shane, but its a whole lot easier to find shane types. Ira Nebewle, Posey, devean george, those guys normally get pulled off the scrap heep. I mean the grizzlies never won a playoff game in 2 yrs with Shane. I didn't say a series, I said a game. Maybe the Rox don't win 22 in a row, maybe the have 2-10 game winning streaks with one loss in between. Is that any different. If our time is now, how come the brass didn't do more to add players at the deadline? First words were this trade helps the rox in the future. Its just seeing a guy grow and get better, while we waste mcgrady and yaos best yrs with avg talent. At least start running with a guy with upside. I just think the rox had a unique situation almost like the spurs, but not quite to have a high lotto pick and the core from a previous 50 win team coming back.
Who cares about Gay. Rockets weren't even interested in him. We wanted Roy. Can you imagine how good we would be this year.
Has Rudy Gay proven himself capable of handling the ball and setting up anyone other than himself? No, he hasn't. T-Mac will still have to be a primary playmaker on the team. Also, McGrady is not capable of defending the most talented perimeter players in the league on a nightly basis, and neither is Rudy Gay. It doesn't just take physical ability. It requires consistent energy and focus. We're kidding ourselves if we expect that from McGrady or Gay. Which means you need to have a third player in there to get a significant chunk of minutes at SG/SF anyways. How does that impact the overall effectiveness of the rotation? I presume you do not want to waste McGrady's and Yao's best years, so you want to put players around them that gives us the best chance to win in the present (well, a 2-3 year window, starting from last season). Ok ... how many games do you think this team would win if Rudy Gay was the starting SF instead of Shane? Just give me a range, it doesn't have to be exact.
U do know Kobe drops 33 per against us? I think this team is a good team defensive team. If you go down defender by defender, it wouldn't constitute a great defensive team. To be a good defensive team, its philosophy and effort. I guess its almost like thinking about the 84 deal in which the rox could have hd dream,clyde, and jordan. Its just kinda unnerving to see other teams trade lotto pick for all star caliber players, and the rox wound up with shane. Charlotte traded their lotto pick for j-rich. Boston got Ray Allen for J. Green rights. When the trade was announced, I just knewthe rox was getting other players. Man, oh well.
Tracy doesn't have to set rudy up for shots Tracy burden would be lighter by that alone. I don't know if the rox win 52 last year, but they would be close. This year, they would be the same or better. Why? IMO that teams would have to focus more on 3 quality offensive players, and making the game easier for all three. Scola is the 4th guy and Rafer is the 5th, which is what he probably better at? Its not undervaluing what shane does, but what wrong with a Posey,R. Butler,Evans,Boggans, Ariza types off the bench as defensive players to spell the both? What about the pressure and game planning teams would have to do? The same pressure manu or some of those other guys would put on the rox, Rudy,tracy, and yao would back. Imagine giving tracy another finsher or Rafer and lane filler or the length he brings on offense and defense. Rudy actually would extend the career of tracy and yao just like parker makes it easier for duncan and keep his window open.
