You're always talking in hypothetics, why don't you talk in reality and join the real world sometime. The woulda coulda shoulda talk gets OLD. TMac expend more energy on D because he has Rudy Gay....LOL, he would have told Rudy "Hey rook, go get Kobe cause I'll be too busy jacking my usual 20-30 shots. And when I signal for the ball on offense, I want it PRONTO, rook."
In that year's draft our target was Brandon roy,but roy was selected by timberwolves with their 6th pick piror to the rockets. However,just several months before the draft, the timberwolves offered the rockets a trade propersal,KG & 1st rounder for tmac& head and our 2nd rounder.man ,we picked novak with our second rounder while they used their 1rounder to pick roy who is our target.If dawson had accepted their offer,we would have built up our dramatic lineup two years earlier. C Yao PF KG SF Battier SG Roy Pg rafer. the trade gay for battier isn't the point, we should have by all means win the title in the past two years no matter whether it is battier or gay playing the sf.
V3.0, what's so hypothetical about tracy spending more energy on defense because he spends less on offense? Did you not see him shut down Dirk and still drop 30 a game? U think kobe is a better defender now than when he played with shaq? Why teams didn't expose the lack of defensive prowess by ray allen? So I guess allen and pierce are better defenders than shane since kobe did nothing. In fact kobe has avg 35 ppg against us since shane has been here yet he avg 27 ppg prior to shane. So hypothetically speaking, Allen,posey,pierce and wesley are better defenders than shane or is that a fact?
Uh no. Why was Kobe ineffective against Boston? It wasn't because of Ray Allen, obviously. Pierce was just okay. Boston has amazing team defense. They clog the lane and help each other out very well. That's how they contained Kobe. Not with one or two guys, but with the whole team. Your comparisons just don't apply in this case.
??? never heard that. what happened was, we had a deal with the wolves. foye and head (or some extra pick...) for roy. wolves picked roy at the 6th pick. blazers... i don't know if they knew the trade between us and wolves but they... picked foye. thus our trade was ruined. wolves wasn't happy either, cause they didn't get the extra filler (head or draft pick.. i don't know) either way, dawson had a great deal in place and was targeting the right guy. don't hate on him. what i hate about this trade, is the amount of trade value gay has. if we knew he could become a star player, there must have been WAY better offers either during our picking time or after the draft. why did we decided to trade right away? announce that gay will be for trade and see what we can get. not great offers, then keep him. its not like he was going to be a scrub or have no impact right away in his rookie season.
People forget that the Grizzlies made the playoffs with 50 wins in 03-04, 45 wins in 04-05, and 49 wins in 05-06 with Battier. They had improved their defensive efficiency each year at 11th, 5th, and 2nd, even with Gasol missing over 20 games in 06-07. Battier wasn't generating enough offense for them. They wanted to add a 3rd scorer to lessen the offensive load on Gasol and Miller. They also picked up athletic PF Stromile Swift. It wasn't pretty. Their offensive effieciency did improve, but they fell to last place in defensive efficiency and won only 22 games all season and firing their coach. http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MEM/2007.html The next season would be better. Marc Iavaroni, the highly coveted Suns assistant, would take over and it would be Rudy Gay's 2nd year. Rudy's scoring output would eclipse Gasol and Miller. Lowry was finally contributing. Half-way through the season, their record is just as bad as the previous year. They just couldn't get back to their winning ways from 2 seasons earlier and they were ranked at the bottom in defensive efficiency again. A 3rd scorer was supposed to free up Gasol and Miller. They implode and get rid of Gasol for Kwame Brown. As the team wonders, what happened to the defense from 05-06 to 06-07? They were supposed to get better, after getting rid of an offensive liability in Battier.
See, you're always ignoring the facts. The fact is...We got Shane so TRACY DOESN'T HAVE TO EXPEND SO MUCH ENERGY ON D. TMac didn't want that, JVG realized also that the team would be better off if another Rockets player took that assignment against the other team's best wing player, despite JVG ego stroking comments about Tmac "that he could be anything he wants to be defensively." Does it matter what Kobe averages against the Rockets pre Shane and present? He's Kobe Freakin Bryant. How's that for a reason? You ever think the Bulls or Jordan ever thought, "Ya know, we need to trade Pippen for an inexperienced high scoring wing player so I can be subjected to guard the opposing teams' best offensive player, and also have that rook take away alot of my shot attempts...."
I am not saying Battier is all that great. It's just that Rudy Gay's has had a negative impact. It's amazing how fast their defense went from 2nd place to 30th in one summer.
Kobe may average more points, but I'm pretty sure his shooting percentage takes a nose dive whenever Shane is put on him. 27 on mid-40s shooting percentage is respectable, 30+ on mid-30s shooting percentage is jacking. Point average by itself is possibly the single most useless indicator of a player's offensive efficiency. And if I do say so myself, having watched the entire Finals, is that Ray Allen did a good job on Kobe. Ray was never known as a defender, but he sucked it up and held Kobe on fair terms. Of course, their team defense is probably superior as well. You have some good insight lee, but arguing that Tmac would've/could've/should've played good defense had gay been here is moot. Because we all know Tmac is our most potent offensive weapon, and by default you wanna lighten his load and not pile more on him. Which brings me to the related point that you claim Gay would have developed into a good defender under JVG etc. Well...could've and would've is one thing, but desire is another. It's not as easy to change habits and coach desire as you think. If it is, Tmac would've developed Kobe's killer instincts by now. Fact is, Gay is a capable scorer who has a low motor, especially on defense. And I'd like to see some coach prove me wrong that he can be turned into a good defender. And lastly, this topic is a dead horse. Like what Rockets2K and durvasa have said, the point is, we were never gonna take Gay. It was Thabo Sefolosha once the trade to move to to get Brandon Roy fell through.
Parasolid, u proved my point. Teams that are good defensively is because they have great team defense and everyone believes in it.Zo was one of the top if not the top defensive big man the yr before the kidney issues. The Heat were still in the top 5 in all the majoor defensive categories even after losing zo. Mad Max was suppose to be the only guy who could contain jordan, but as soon as he played jordan minus dream, mj was dropping 50 on his head. V3, after the injury riddled lotto yr, the rox brass said they needed a big wing that can slash and score to take pressure off tracy. For the draft, there were 3 or 4 guys that fit that profile, Gay,Brewer,Roy, and Thabo. All of those guy fit the bill. The bulls did give Jordan 2 atheletic guys in the same draft with Ho Grant and Pippen in 87. What have the rox drafted since the Yao/Mcgrady combo started? Luther Head, traded the lotto pick, Brooks, landry, dorsey, novak. Do any of those guys look like Pippen or Ho Grant?
yedeyadiyada Battier >>>>>>>>>>Gay. Period. Now more so than ever with Ron Artest. I'm not even going to say why because it is so obvious. Unless we're talking about trade value between them, in which case Gay clearly has an edge.
If the recent championships by the Pistons, Spurs, and Celtics tells us anything, its that DEFENSE wins. Period. I dont have the numbers but would venture to say that those teams were top 3 defensively during their runs. Battier >>> Gay in both individual and team defense. Now with Artest, we have a total mismatch and the depth to exploit it. We continue to have a great defensive nucleus and added one of the best in the biz. Personally, I like the idea of Artest at 4 at the sacrifice of Sco'landry'. Hes got the body and the hands to keep bigs at bay. Then on the other end, he will absolutely abuse big 4s. Take a Gasol vs. Artest matchup. I think thats a mismatch in our favor. Should I pony up for season tix?
Parasolid, u proved my point. Teams that are good defensively is because they have great team defense and everyone believes in it.Zo was one of the top if not the top defensive big man the yr before the kidney issues. The Heat were still in the top 5 in all the majoor defensive categories even after losing zo. Mad Max was suppose to be the only guy who could contain jordan, but as soon as he played jordan minus dream, mj was dropping 50 on his head. V3, after the injury riddled lotto yr, the rox brass said they needed a big wing that can slash and score to take pressure off tracy. For the draft, there were 3 or 4 guys that fit that profile, Gay,Brewer,Roy, and Thabo. All of those guy fit the bill. The bulls did give Jordan 2 atheletic guys in the same draft with Ho Grant and Pippen in 87. What have the rox drafted since the Yao/Mcgrady combo started? Luther Head, traded the lotto pick, Brooks, landry, dorsey, novak. Do any of those guys look like Pippen or Ho Grant?
Just click on the link and read what I said just a few days earlier about the Gay/Swift for Battier trade, which is in the thread titled "Morey's Trades". http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=3822897&postcount=41
