Harden is far superior to either of them, that's for sure. And younger too. Heck, I'd rather have just Harden than both of those guys on my team.
I'm also sort of chuckling as the bar keeps being lowered for players that OJ Mayo is "better than." It was "Is OJ Mayo better than James Harden?" Now it's "Is OJ Mayo better than Rudy Gay?" Soon we'll be on "Is OJ Mayo better than Alexey Shved?"
Rudy Gay has been a great player so far in his young career. I think he has a very high ceiling and can help that Grizzlies team reach its full potential. Just my opinion though of course
Mayo chose to play for less in order to drive his price up. The contract, 1yr+1yr player option, is obviously designed for that. Make no mistake, he asked to be underpaid in order to have the opportunity to put up big stats and get more later. So far, he's succeeding. That said, I think his market value is ~$10-12mil/yr. Which is still a MLE contract less than Rudy Gay's. In that sense, even assuming they're similar value, that's still an extra role player you can pick up by choosing Mayo.
You mean that mysterious ball of light in the sky? Overrated. Can't sustain its shooting percentages. It's all about drinking bourbon and staying in to watch Ricky Rubio's return on league pass. That or going to a sports bar and doing basically the same thing. Psshhhh...sun.
It's not terrible, but it doesn't make you a good fit for two low post bruisers, which is what I'm responding to in my post. A good for that would probably be someone like Battier, who doesn't need the ball to be effective and can hit 3s at the same or better clip. More importantly, Battier would cost 1/2 of Gay's salary (Battier cost 7M at his peak), so you could spend that extra $$$ on better role players. Same thing applies with Mayo, even if he gets market value on his skills, his salary would still be in the 9-12M range, which at the end of the day is still less than Gay's max contract.
Well. If you look at it. Gay's role is not a stars role because they have too many good players. Ojs' role at the moment is to be the guy for his team. Keeping Gay was the right move for Memphis. His defense is valuable.
Rudy Gay is one of the dumbest players in the NBA. God-awful court vision, terrible shot selection, black hole on offense, below-average effort on defense...you name it. It's a shame because he's so naturally talented. And since he's on a good team, people assume he's become a smart player - which couldn't be further from the truth.
OJ Mayo is one of the dumbest players in the NBA. God-awful court vision, terrible shot selection, black hole on offense, below-average effort on defense...you name it. It's a shame because he's so naturally talented. And since he's on a good team, people assume he's become a smart player - which couldn't be further from the truth.
They are not that "good" of a team, they are mid league at best. Also last month he avged 4 reb, 4 ast and 1.4 st on 46% shooting along with 19 pts. That's very solid all around numbers.
Rudy Gay in December: 6.7 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.6 steals, 17.2 points. What now? But the real point of the post you replied to was the post before it was factless and applied to neither player.
He's making like 3x what Mayo's making though. That's what. I don't think Gay's dumb, but he's really soft and he avoids contact. He's also really passive and is just content to get Gasol and ZBo's leftover possessions and just shoot Js all game long. Considering how big and how long his contract is, I think he's almost as untradeable as Amare lol.
Strawman's argument? Since his argument took money into account, his assertion is basically a prime Battier + Mayo vs Rudy Gay + cheap, ME player. I'll take former over the latter.
I'd rather have an empty roster and tank then try to build my franchise around Rudy Gay on a max deal.
The premise of the thread is silly because we *just* saw what OJ Mayo produced as a Memphis Grizzly. He was crap. It's not like he was stuck behind Rudy Gay or something. Hell, Rudy Gay spent the better part of the season out due to injury and Mayo still couldn't distinguish himself. He was relegated to the bench and got limited minutes because he sucked in Memphis. So Mayo's value to that particular team was much lower than Rudy Gay's, and always will be, obviously. We can blather on about who has the best contract given their production, now that Mayo has had a change of scenery, but it still doesn't address the fact that OJ Mayo played like garbage when he was with the Memphis Grizzlies--which is the only thing that actually matters to the Memphis Grizzlies. In fact, Memphis had been trying to trade him for years because Mayo didn't play well on their team or get along with their players. Hell, Tony Allen once had to b****-slap Mayo because Mayo wouldn't pay a poker debt and was bad-mouthing his own teammate. So did they make a "mistake" not keeping poor performing, locker room cancer OJ Mayo? Of course not.
