Rudy Gay's about to show the world he's on Durant's level

We gotta dump this thread, I think the last games made it pretty clear Rudy is a just about average SF in this league. Plus some guys here broguht all evidence to that with huge stat-based posts.

 

Your premise is that any average player in the NBA could put up similar scoring numbers to Gay and by extension Danny Granger (whose numbers over the course of their careers are comparable) if they shot the ball the same amount of times.

Thus, the two of them are just average NBA players who score just because they shoot the ball a lot. Thus, you further assert that because of that they're very inefficient.

Sounds like circular logic to me... There's a reason that most average NBA players don't shoot as much as Gay and Granger and that's because they can't score as well as those two or else, at the very least, they would be ATTEMPTING to shoot as much as those guys and they'd be making over 12 mill a year. Most players realize their limitations. This is the reason guys like Luc Richard Mbah a Moute don't shoot much. Let's take an example of a player who did exactly what you said. As much as I like Trevor Ariza as a role player, did you see what happened when he started taking more shots in an attempt to score more while he was with the Rockets? The results weren't pretty. Now the examples you mentioned to try and backup your false assertion and logical fallacy don't prove anything, because those players either didn't come close to matching Gay's and Granger's scoring numbers over the course of their careers or weren't able to sustain the same level scoring throughout their careers as Gay and Granger have done thus far.

I didn't realize that Rudy Gay and Danny Granger are basically Ricky Davis and Ron Mercer clones. Thanks for clearing that up for us. Let's see if anybody else thinks Gay and Granger are today's versions of Davis and Mercer. It would seem that most NBA GMs disagree.

 

This argument is such a slippery slope.

Great Rudy Gay Game:

He IS on Durant's level!

Good Rudy Gay Game:

He's top 5, I never said the best!

Bad Rudy Gay Game:

He's like Danny Granger-Lite. His career stats are sort-of similar!



TRUTH:

1. Rudy Gay is a good NBA player.
2.He is a borderline All-Star talent.
3. He is better than Shane Battier.
4. Kevin Durant and Rudy Gay should never be compared.

 

Off-night Rudy Gay is a mirror image of Al Thornton.

 

The standards for what constitutes an All-Star must have been lowered a lot, if Rudy Gay is "borderline." He's only a borderline All-Star if you restrict yourself to ppg (the most simplistic and overrated stat out there) while ignoring the fact that he played just shy of 40 mpg in recent seasons.

PER is a stat that overrates volume scorers, giving them a bonus just for scoring a few more points, whether they had to chuck up a bunch of bad shots to get it or not. Even PER doesn't say Rudy is that great. He's currently a 17 PER player, which is what he's been for years now. According to this stat, Rudy is like the 4th best player on his own team (5th if you want to include Randolph, 6th if you want to include Haddadi's tiny sample size).

After last night's no FT brick fest, Rudy's TS% is down to 0.503. That's terrible. I hesitate to call him a liability on offense, but really, that kind of production isn't making his team's offense good. Marc Gasol is scoring just 3.7 less points per game, on 6.1 fewer FGAs. Wouldn't the Grizzlies be better served if Rudy gave up some of those long 2's so that Gasol, or his other teammates, could take better shots?

Rudy isn't carrying the Grizzlies. He's lucky to be on a team this deep. When he hasn't had so many good teammates (i.e. most of the rest of his career), the Grizz have been awful.

 

I like these message board guys: when Rudy Gay had bad teammates, the Grizz were awful. I think you should start a blog with such astute observations. You are sure to be picked up by Hoopsworld in no time.

 

Because they were a desperate team, with a trade exception to use, and probably in more danger of hitting the NBA payroll floor than the luxury tax.

None of that changes the core complaint about Gay; on form (size, jumpshooting form, athleticism) he's a stud, in substance he is not maximizing thosse skills on the court (despite his maximized salary).

And when he had good teammates, went out with an injury, and was replaced by the No-stats all star, the team didn't really miss a beat (or thabeet).

 

Lol...the Grizz were worse with Battier. Seems like we haven't missed a beat without ZBo also. Maybe that is what good teams do...

 

The word on the street is otherwise:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Rud...7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=

 

Who said Granger and Gay are the same? In the past Granger has been a level above Gay... Then again, apparently Gay and Durant are equal, so go ahead with your charade.

 

I like Rudy Gay well enough....but his career arc is looking a lot more like Michael Finley's than Kevin Durant. I don't hold it against you guys, homers (and we all are) are going to focus on the ceiling and ultimate potential rather than the more neutral perspective.

At his best, he gives you 20-6-3. All nice numbers. He hits at 47% which is good for a swingman, but is slightly subpar in his efficiency (1.2 pps) - which points to the reliance on 2 point jumpers.

The big reasons why he's not going to be mentioned in the same sentence as true franchise 3s (all numbers career):

Durant: 1.4 pps, 8 fta-pg
LeBron: 1.4 pps, 9 fta-pg
Pierce: 1.4 pps, 8 fta-pg

Gay: 1.2 pps, 4 fta-pg

May not seem like a big difference to you, you may be inclined to dismiss it out of hand, but "true" franchise guys score efficiently (cut off line is ~ 1.3pps) and get to the line. Typically that's the difference between winning basketball and guys that put up big numbers on forever terrible teams. NBA scoring is like nutrition - there's a lot of junk food and empty calories out there.

 

Tony Campbell from the early 90's Timberwolves has reported this post for moderation.

 

One thing I really, really like about Gay a lot is he has a very definitive signature move that he can execute against even the best defenses. The fade away jump shot from distance. He used that to knock down a couple game winners last season. I'm not a huge fan of Gay. I do think he may be a little bit underrated by many because of the size of his contract. But I do like him on the floor with the clock winding down and needing a 2 or 3 to tie or win.

 

I knew Gay's defense sucked, but didn't know how bad until I looked it up.

As a PF Gay shoots 56%. His opposition shoots 65%. As a SF he shoots 45%. His opposition shoots 47%. Also, his opposition goes to the line more than he does. They also rebound better than he does.

Granted, like Kevin Martin you take into account his volume shooting vs his opposition's less volume shooting. So overall he's still positive. But the guy is the very definition of overrated player because his overall impact is less than his raw stats suggest. Doesn't mean he sucks. But he's nowhere near all-star level.

 

See, that's where I'm at on the deal. A lot of posters, the battier faithful will swear it was a good trade. Tbh, I made comments when it happened that it could look good now, but if the rockets don't win a championship and rudy plays well, its going to look bad. I think most will agree the rockets could and should've gotten more for the 8th pick than just dumping a mle deal which is the easiest contract in the nba to move. This thread quickly runed into how ineffecient or how rudy sucks or blah,blah, blah. The reality is gay is better than anyone on the rockets rockets in terms of finishing a game. Like you said, he has a go to move he can get off against anyone in the league and that has value. How many of the ineffecient chuckers poster like to compare him to can say that? Is he worth the max? No, but as I stated, he's not going to bomb out on that deal either. He'll continue to make big shots and plays late in games because he has that ability. Morey even stated after year 2 he didn't think rudy would be good that fast. There is no way the rockets aren't a better team with rudy gay even as a rookie, but that's besides the point.

So all the stat cube guys can continue to argue about his shot selection or lack of foul shots or whatever. I do know after having watched the guy and the grizz for awhile that his ability late in games is a huge plus. This isn't bob horry waiting on someone create for him. This is a guy who can get to his spot, rise up and fire over guys late in games. You normally don't see fouls called in those situations and it goes back to shot making. Notice lowry and his fouls haven't translated since being a starter, but what he has done is improved his shot making under a contest. He has his little step back to creates space to get a shot off. That's something kevin martin,shane battier, and a lot of guys can't do. Late in games, you're going to take a contested shot unless there is a breakdown or something.

 

And you know this why?

Let's rewind this a second, you've established that Rudy Gay has a fairly reliable shot that can be deployed at end-of-game situations, you skip a step, and so you assume that this translates into a superior value on his part.

What about the step you skipped?

Can you prove it? Do you have any facts to back it up?

Or is it just your intuition that since he can elevate for a jumper, therefore he must deploy it frequently at the end of games and be fairly successful with it, and that this outweighs the numerous drawbacks that pile up over the rest of the game from his contact-averse, shot-heavy offensive style.

What if I were to show you a data set that said he wasn't doing this - would you still think your conclusion valid? Or would you mumble something aobut magic stat geeks and blah blah blah.

See again, you're just starting with the conclusion. He was not very good as a rookie....and would have been a horrible fit on the Rockets. Sure, the guy posted 10 ppg - about the same as Shane Battier. The difference is that guy basically took twice as many touches to get there, which, on a 27 win lottery team, are a lot less precious than on a winning team that year.

You really think that would have been the best use of a half-court, 2007 Rockets team's limited possessions - to feed Gay and take the ball out of McGrady/Yao's hands, to the point where's he's taking twice as many shots as Battier was to score teh same number of points, and being a defensive sieve on the other side, removing an all-D team caliber guy? That assertion is just crazy, you don't need any advanced stats degree to understand it. .

 

Too bad he rises up and shoots bad fadeaways which brick in the 1st quarter too.

 

Lol, sure buddy, don't let the facts and their comparable numbers across the board for their careers get in your way. I guess you have nothing to say after your earlier "argument" was dismantled. You should indeed consider changing your name from Nook to Intellectual Crook. It has a nice ring to it and it has the added benefit of being true.