To turn the parallels around, Battier sound likes Rodney McCray, and Gay looks like Clyde Drexler. McCray was drafted over Drexler because of his defense and intagibles. Everyone knows how this turned out.
I dont think this is necessarily true. Go back to the Pistons taking Darko instead of Anthony. Clearly Anthony is the better player. Clearly Anthony is a star. But i think the bigger reason they did not draft him is because Tayshaun Prince was at that position and he fit what the Pistons did better. If they had gone with Melo, Prince could not have gotten major minutes in their championship and finals run. Without Prince on the floor for his defense I dont think the Pistons win. Thats what I feel about Battier. Gay may and probably will become the better scorer and much more flashy player. But I think Battier will help the Rox more where they need it which is hustle, defense, and ball rotation. If the Rox make a deep run, thats all that is important.
Yes he only scored 6 pts a game in the four games but only took a total of 20 shots making 10 of them. He is not going to be a go to scorer. With Yao and tmac healthy he doesnt need to be, nor would we want anyone else on the team taking the bulk of the shots. If anyone choked last year it was Gasol. He did score 20 a game but did it with 4 times as many shots shooting only 43 percent which is terrible for a big man. Plus he is the star and is the one the Grizz needed to step up and score big in order to win.
with yao and tmac healthy, gay's and battiers contribution will probably be the same.. with yao or tmac down, battier will still play his role while gay will have a chance to step up..
I will agree with you on that one to some degree. I say with both Yao and tmac healthy, Battier contributes more with his ability to guard three positions and be efficient without having plays run for him. I just dont see Gay being able to ever guard a PF which is what we will ask Battier to do quite a bit. Also there will be times a PF has to guard Battier which is when Battier can spread the D out and hit open shots or create more space for Yao and Tmac. If Yao or Tmac goes down, Gay has more potential to step in and carry the load, but I dont think he can do that in year 1. For the Rox to have a truly successful season next year, both Yao and Tmac have to be healthy especially late in the year or else it wont matter if we had gay or battier.
you're the one that said he was a "glue guy" the stats you provided indicate otherwise as far as one-on-one defense is concerned if you can, go and read memphisx's analysis of battier, which is dead on in my view and i'll take his word over the views of most others here since he's been watching the griz on a consistent basis for a while now
the difference in comparison is Battier has been in the league for 5 years and has probably peaked as a player...while Prince was just finished his rookie season. Piston fans were pretty upset with Carlise for not playing Prince during regular season...opting to play Michael Curry instead. (only averaged 10mpg in the regular season) It wasn't until the playoffs against Orlando when Carlise realized he need to do something about McGrady so he put Prince on him...thats when Prince blew up as a player. His minutes went up to 25mpg and his points went from 3ppg in the regular season to 10ppg. Thats a huge jump for a rookie to make in the playoffs on team that went to the conference finals. That showed he had an upside himself....Battier doesn't.
Talk what you know. The problem was that Shane would not shoot, even when open. Pau was getting tripled and he would pass the ball out and Mr. Glue would pass up the open shot and move the ball. Unselfish? Maybe but eventually Dallas just stopped rotating out to him because they knew he wouldn't shoot, so they packed it in. On our team, he needed to shoot and refused to and that is why he was shipped out. Rumor...Seems like this trade could have went a bunch of different ways. Houston decided on Battier over Miller and the Grizz took Swift over Howard and Rafer.
Not surprising really... I would imagine that Grizz fans would have preferred that the Rockets had taken Miller, and I know most of us would have liked if the Grizz had taken Howard rather than Swift
Actually, West admitted that he originally wanted to ship off Miller but ended up settling for battier
I would have preferred you take Miller to Battier. Unlike Battier, Miller is useless unless he is scoring. He will be traded this summer also.
You keep only looking at points and rebounds when you compare results for Gay vs. Battier. My point is battier will be worth a lot more to the Rox because of his defense and ability to play the 4 as well as contribute without scoring. As for your later argument about the upside with Prince, why dont you compare this most recent season. Tayshaun only scored 4 points more then Battier per game even though he took over 4 more shots per game. Tayshaun was also outrebound by about 1 a game by Shane. Not exactly monster differences. And if you were saying that the Rox would have been better off with Miller versus Battier in this trade, you are nuts.
i'm not talking about stats any more.. it was a response to what you said do you understand what you just said? you basically said as long as tmac and yao are healthy, it wont matter if we had gay or battier.. did you even read my last post to MemphisX? wheter its gay & swift for battier or gay & swift for miller, no deal for me..
as opposed to expecting Gay to be a superstar in the NBA? Frankly, being a bust or not is mostly in the minds of the fans. I don't expect Gay to be a star. All I want him to be is a decent 3rd option. So if he doesn't turn out to be the Next LBJ, I'm okay with it.
That a pretty bad comparison you got there. How old is Darko vs Anthony? Now, how old is Gay vs Battier? Darko and Anthony were both "potential" at that time, being they were both rookies, so I don't see how Anthony was "clearly" a star. It's like saying Bargnani, or Gay, or Roy is "clearly" a star too. Besides, who says Gay has to take TMac's position? The SG and SF position is so interchangebale these days. As a matter of fact, Battier plays TMac's position too.
