that doesn't change the fact he never won anything as the franchise player of the Hawks. and they only got to the 2nd round. Nique, unfair or not to call him this, was simply not a winner. It wasn't in his DNA to make his teammates better, he tried to do everything himself. It's an unfair knock cause he did have a great career and the Hawks did make the playoffs when he was there, but perception is reality. Nique will never be mentioned in the same breath as with his 80's/early 90's contemporaries like Magic, Dr. J, Bird, Dream, Jordan, Zeke Thomas... and I'm willing to bet we will say the same thing about Gay "Great player, never won anything"
carmelo is a legit franchise player (or at least a superstar) and he has marginal handles. i'm not saying he'll be a top 5-7 player, but he can be a franchise player b/c the way i saw him step up v. double/triple teams is something only 9-10 players can do on a consistent basis. nobody is saying rudy is gonna be a great all-around player. he'll be a 27-28 ppg scorer w/ 6-7 rebounds real soon. he can score against double/triple teams pretty well right now (he'll do it better in a few yrs). they got other guys to handle the ball.
i never said he was mentioned in the same breath. a franchise player to me is that one guy can carry a team, regardless of who's on his team. nique did that. he was a franchise player. to WIN IN THE PLAYOFFS, you need more talent than that. i'm sure magic was thankful he had 3 other hall-of-famers; jordan had scottie, zeke had a few HOFs with him + some great bruisers... regardless, nique was a stud during that era. he went at it with bird's celtics who had multiple HOFs playing with him and took them to 7 games. a player doesn't win in the playoffs. a team does.
but at the end of the day, he came up short and therefore gets the "couldn't get the job done cause he's just not that type of player" label he had decent help...moses malone, doc rivers, kevin willis, reggie theus...but even if he had HOF teammates he wouldn't have used them, the knock on Nique was that he was a ballhog and passing was not a skill he excelled.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be harsh, but this statement shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the game of basketball on your part. They have other guys to handle the ball? Sorry, but elite wings do anything they want with the basketball.
people still debate battier and gay? we have t-mac, yao, and ron artest, we're not missing rudy gay. battier plays elite level defense and anchors one of the best defensive teams in the league. i'd do that trade if it was yesterday and I have no problem with gay being a perennial all-star. win now.
The Rockets should have never traded away Rudy Gay. When you have Rafer Alston as your starting PG, you need all the offense you can get. Rudy Gay is clutch. He hit a game winnier in Tim Duncan's grill last year too: http://ballhype.com/story/rudy_gay_sticks_a_game_winning_three_in_tim_duncan_s/
Yeah, Rudy Gay is definitely on his way to becoming a superstar and an All-Star. I think it finally hit me when I saw the game where he laid the smack down on Luis Scola and got him on his poster last year. Otherwise, even though Battier and Gay play the same position, it's hard to say which would have been better for the Rockets. Battier is known for his team-oriented and fundamental playing, and is one of the main reasons we have one of the premier defenses in the league and had 22 wins in a row. Gay, still in his early days, and as many rising superstars do, focus on their shooting and offensive skills first. He would also be a promising player for an otherwise aging Rockets team that is about to pass their prime.
I noticed that Rudy Gay lovers are Francis fans also so my theory stands those players attract the hype over substance fans "man that was a killer crossover and dunk off the backboard, my mind is made up, he is the franchise player and if we get rid of him, I'll harp continuously about what we could have had...hey wait, time to head over to Pub Fiction..."
Dwight Howard sucks! 14 points?! NOTHING improved about his game! NOTHING! I watched that game and I didn't see ANYTHING improved! Yao will eat him alive again and again and again! Yao is #1! To the Dwight Howard fans, don't give me that "oh he was fronted" crap, blah blah blah. Don't be making excuses for Dwight Howard. He'll NEVER ever be better than the #1 center in the NBA. And that's YAO MING!
My guess is you need to watch Rudy Gay a wee but more. You don't torch double and triple teams in isolation without being able to handle the ball. What is funny is that he is younger than anyone on the Rocket's roster.
Rudy Gay reminds me of Jerry Stackhouse. Stack put up big numbers on a crappy team but no matter how hard he tried, his team was always crappy. Then got traded to a good team and is better suited for instant offense from the bench. Gay is a scoring machine ...but I don't see much else. Gay on the court with Yao would have been very frustrating to watch.
Name a superstar wing who can't make plays for his teammates. I don't consider Carmelo a superstar because he can't create for his teammates, and I think the same about Rudy Gay future version, to a lesser extent of course. I don't see what's so funny about Rudy Gay being younger than anyone on the Rocket's roster, especially since the Rockets will still be better than the Grizzlies in four years. In a few years, Rudy Gay will be carrying the Memphis to the 8th seed, and will probably one up his star predecessor (hint: he's in LA now) by winning one playoff game.
people tend to forget that it was basically thabo sefolosha + stro swift for battier. the rockets didn't think highly of gay and were not gonna pick him. you can say that the rockets were wrong about gays developement. but the above mentioned trade was a very good one. on a side note: gay would not have fit in with the rockets and the rockets need battier.
