I completely disagree. We built this team around Yao and T-Mac, and I believe Battier is the better piece around them than Gay would be. A team built around Yao and T-Mac is much better than a team built around Gasol and Gay, as evidenced by the respective records. Gay wouldn't be putting up nearly the same numbers on the Rockets team, even with the same minutes. Someone else rightly said that putting up big numbers on a losing team is nothing great. I am not saying that Gay is a bad player, far from it, I just think that Battier is a perfect complement to Yao and T-Mac. I wouldn't mind having them both .
Sorry, you feel that way, Easy as I feel you're one of the better posters around in the GARM and Dish. It is just the one time I really feel that strongly over a move that management made. Most of the time, I would keep my comments to myself and rarely post about them (such as the trade for Alston with Mike James). But you don't know how elated and happy I was when I heard we had drafted Rudy Gay. And you also don't know how devestated I was when I had heard we had traded Rudy Gay away. It still ranks as the biggest disappointment I have had as a Rockets fan - even more than losing Game 6 of the '98 WC Finals to the damn hated Jazz. So, yea I have some pretty passionate feelings about it and I am not going to change my views on it anytime soon.
Well if Van Gundy wasn't so damn stubborn and actually gave rookies a chance, then yes I feel that Gay would have contributed more than Battier. But the one thing that you and others that defend this awful trade keep forgetting is that the Rockets not only gave up on Gay (which was a huge error in judgment by management) but threw in Swift and all they got back was Battier - they didn't even get the Grizzlies 2nd pick of the first round! I mean I would have still been unhappy with us getting rid of Gay but if we had gotten something back besides Battier (and sorry but getting rid of Swift wasn't it), then I wouldn't have had such a problem with this trade. You could have fooled me, Drexler. I'm glad to see that both you and Bill Simmons have already figured Rudy Gay out before he even stepped onto an NBA court - how about giving him a couple of seasons before you make the judgment that because he looked "lackluster" in his last college season meant he was going to be passive or a bust in the NBA. I mean it is like people look at the Eddie Griffin thing (and Rudy has been compared to Eddie) and they think the same thing would happen again. That is such stupid specious logic. That is like me saying that all 16 year olds are going to have a carwreck because it happened to one 16 year old. It is like people want to label things or others immediately. I don't like that. I'll see what I can find and report back to you - might be tomorrow though before I come up with anything. But I will say that this rumor that Gay didn't give a **** sure spread like wildfire - after all, he was the projected #1 pick for a long time in the NBA draft.
Rudy Gay was predicted to be the #1 pick by some. Some said he had the most talent of anyone in the draft. The Rockets were idiots not to have him on their radar…especially considering how the lack of athleticism on the perimeter killed us in the Mavs series. Yeah, other teams passed on him as well. They are idiots too. I’m not as upset with them because you could argue that Gay was the last big potential player of that draft…meaning the teams picking prior to us also got high potential players. I recall that draft having 7 high potential players, and the majority of us were hoping someone slid into the top 7 to knock one of the studs down to us. I remember this vividly because there was a huge debate about us winning some meaningless game to knock us out of the top 7. You don’t trade for a Battier type player unless he puts you over the top, and our team wasn’t close enough to the title to warrant that acquisition. And then you surely don’t overpay by throwing another player in and not getting jack back. I have stated many times….Battier alone should not be enough to fetch a top 8 pick in any decent draft.
Off the top of my head, I can tell you that Caron Butler is one that wasn't drafted as high as many people thought because he had a questionable attitude. He seems to be doing pretty well with the Wizards. McGrady was drafted #9 in '97 after there were talks he was going to go in the top 4. Seems like I remember something about his attitude (as well as coming straight from HS) that caused some teams to shy away from him. Then there was this article I found by super scout, Marty Blake in which he talks about the top 10 draft sleepers - not all were guys who fell because of motivation/attitude problems but one that caught my eye was Karl Malone: "Drafted in the first round with the 13th pick of the ’84 NBA Draft. There were plenty of skeptics regarding his ability even after I had 30 or more NBA people watch him play against Joe Dumars (McNeese State) in Lake Charles, La. his junior year. He played 19 years as a partner of one of the most potent twosomes in NBA history with Stockton. Malone is a member of the 50th anniversary team (with Stockton), was the league’s MVP in 1997 and 1999 and was named to the All-NBA First Team 11 times (Second Team twice). He played on the winning U.S. Olympic teams in 1992 and 1996 and holds too many team and league records to mention." link - http://www.nba.com/features/martyblake_070516.html Rod Strickland was another, that I believe was selected later in the first round because of motivation issues (he was drafted #19 in the '88 draft by the Knicks). Do you need me to come up with some more? Because if you do, it will have to be tomorrow.
Thats cool, I love Battier as well, and maybe he is a better player for the Rockets, but I think Gay is the better overall player....
First, Van Gundy WAS so damn stubborn, end of story. Secondly, I just flat disagree with you that even in that case, Gay would have done more than Shane did. Actually, this was addressed earlier. I see dumping Swift's contract as a positive. I mean, we're talking about lackluster players... Swift is the king of the hill on that one. He was never gonna give us anything. We're already over the tax right now... you don't think it'd be tougher for us to get Scola with Swift on the roster, both money-wise and from the fact Scola would know that that's one more guy he's gotta compete with? Oh boy, I hope you're joking. I'm not arguing that knowing what I know now, we shouldn't have done things differently. Telling people to "give him a couple years" is COMPLETELY beside the point. The point is that we had to make a choice on draft night, and AT THE TIME, a veteran with a reputation for hard work and a sharp shooting eye made a whole lot more sense than a guy who looked like he didn't care even in a season when he knew he had spotlights on him. If we had to do it over again, would I keep him? Probably. But that's not my point. Never was. Hence the "hindsight is 20-20" comment. I hate when people make crappy comparisons. Being 16 has very little direct effect on the likelihood of getting into a car wreck. We're talking about a guy being lackluster on the court in college, and using that as a basis to say that he'll probably be lackluster on the court in the future. A better comparison would be to say "a guy who's gotten himself in car wrecks before is more likely than most to be in a car wreck in future." Is that an illogical statement to you? Caron Butler: "Questionable attitude" does not equal "motivation issues" in his case. From what I recall Butler was what you might call "b*tchy," but that doesn't mean he didn't work hard. McGrady: I'm sure you're going to call this a cop-out, but I don't think it's fair to apply the same standards to a kid out of high school and a sophomore in college. They both had fantastic talent coming in, but you'd hope the one with two years of college under his belt would be a little farther along. That's a red flag as far as I'm concerned. You don't like to see regression, and Gay seemed to play with more fire his Freshman year than his sophomore year. Karl Malone: I see only a comment about ability in there, nothing about not working hard. Am I missing something? Rod Strickland: Rod was a guy who averaged 20-8, and was the leader of a good team. That's enough of an indication of his value right there for me. How many times did you look at Rudy Gay and say "he's really the leader of this team?"
Again, with the Stromile Swift thing, I think management viewed ditching his contract as a positive. I certainly do. Yeah, Gay was predicted to go #1 by most... BEFORE his last season. And yeah, he had tons of talent. Wanna know some other guys who had tons of talent? Kwame Brown. Eddie Griffin. Stromile Swift. Maciej Lampe. Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Darko Milicic. Marcus Fizer. Jonathan Bender. Joe Smith.
Again, Battier alone is not worth a top 8 pick in any draft. You don't trade top 10 picks for role players..especially ones that can't create their own offense or aren't elite defenders. And he is fulfilling that talent at the moment. The draft is all about potential. Ok, they didn't live up to their talent. Gay is playing pretty darn good in his 2nd season. You get blamed when you pick the busts AND when you pass on the impact players or give them away. I.E. Houston gets credit for picking Yao even though we had the #1 pick....but they woulda blew it by passing on him.
Battier alone isn't. Battier + being able to toss a long-term contract you really don't want might be. Indeed. And he went at #8 with #1 talent because everyone was terrified at all the "potential" he had to be a guy who never left it all out on the floor. Yeah, he is playing pretty darn well. And if management could read the future, there's a good chance we'd have kept him. And yes, you DO get blamed when you screw up a draft. But my point is that the trade was smart at the time. What I have a problem with is that nearly all Gay's proponents on this board, including you, act like the trade made no sense at all even at the time, and that it was obvious to even the most casual observer that Gay was sure to be a future superstar. So let me get this straight. According to you: 1. It was obvious from the start that his work ethic wouldn't ever potentially be a problem. 2. He clearly had #1 talent. So it's obvious then, right? If both of those are FACTS, if those two things are ABSOLUTELY TRUE (you seem to think they are), then I ask you: why did 7 teams pass on him? You're saying you're smarter than 7 NBA GMs (8 if you include us)? I have no problem with people saying "gee, wish we'd kept Gay. Memphis got the better end of that one in the long run." What I have a problem with is people who say "anyone who passed on Rudy Gay is an idiot." It's not that simple. The lackluster play was a red flag that any team would've been dumb to ignore. And yet people act like we passed up Olajuwon or Lebron.
We'll have to agree to disagree then. You're missing the point. Battier, even with the dumping of a contract, is not worth the #8 pick in itself. The Rockets really should have pushed to get the Grizzlies' 2nd pick in the 1st round (which turned out to be Kyle Lowry). Proponents of the trade on the Rockets side always use that (dumping Swift) as their justification that the Rockets did the right thing by not pushing the Grizzlies for their 2nd pick in the 1st round, when the truth is this (dumping Swift) was a move that fit one person's and one person only, agenda in Van Gundy. We have Adelman and more than likely, he would have figured out some way to use Swift and his athleticism. And you really can't make the conclusion, Drexler, that getting rid of Swift enabled us to get Scola. I always thought that getting rid of Spanoullis was what got us Scola. I mean I do see what you are getting at but I think you are reaching on that point. A smart GM like Morey (although he wasn't that smart in passing over Gay, haha) would still had found some way to get a useful player like Scola, regardless if Swift was on the team or not. Bull**** - this team DESPERATELY needed some athleticism to go along with McGrady. Gay was probably the most athletic player available. I love how you and all these other armchair GMs think you know a guy by watching his facial expressions. Do you think that Tim Duncan is a guy who looks like "he doesn't care"? Does all players have to scream and beat their chest after they make a dunk or hit a 3 for you to think they "care" - give me a freaking break! No, he was not lackluster. Your perception of him was that he is lackluster. Your perception doesn't make it so. Caron Butler, Richard Hamilton, Emeka Okafor, Ray Allen, Ben Gordon, Donyell Marshall - what do those guys have in common with Rudy Gay, Drexler? They all played at least one season at UConn under Jim Calhoun. And last I checked, they all have had solid to great NBA careers so far. I'm not saying that every guy who comes out of UConn is going to be bullet-proof from being mediocre (see Josh Boone so far), but for the most part, if a prospect is coming out of UConn, then the odds are pretty good that this prospect will be, at the very least, a solid role player, maybe even a superstar in the NBA. Too bad that you can't see that - but you aren't alone in that (as Dawson, Morey, and Van Gundy were in the same boat with you). Lol, I like how you take my examples and have some excuse for each one. I should have known better that I was wasting my time in doing that exercise. In looking at Gay's stats his 2 years at UConn, they went up in every category except for blocks per game, yet you can sit there and tell me definitively that Rudy played with more "fire" his freshman year than sophomore year?? Are you being serious?? Look, I'll say this like I have had to people like weslinder and anyone else who is pro-Battier trade - this deal was only the right one if we were able to win an NBA title in the 2 to 4 years after making the deal. Shane still has this season and the next 2, IMO, to help the Rockets win an NBA title. I did stretch it out a little longer compared to some others but the point remains that after 4 seasons in the league, Rudy Gay is going to be a monster (probably will be one before his 4th season in the league). His pedigree from UConn predicts that it is going to happen. And that is WHY I will never accept this deal as a good one. The Rockets needed some athleticism desperately and Gay came from a basketball factory that for the most part has always had success at the next level. To just completely not even have him in their plans is beyond mind-boggling to me. Then to not even get another player back with Battier made that even worse.
You say I'm missing the point. I think you're missing the point, as I already said. Working as hard as you can work has nothing to do with screaming and beating your chest. I'm well aware of that, thank you. I think he WAS lackluster. YOUR perception is that he was not. YOUR perception doesn't make it so, either. Again, apparently neither of us is moving on this one. When I watched Rudy Gay in his final season, I didn't see a guy who was trying as hard as he could try. And apparently neither did many NBA GMs. Take your examples and make excuses for each one? Yeah, because I think they're bad examples that fail to disprove my point. Kinda like that nonsensical 16-year-olds and car wrecks comparison you came up with. Come up with better examples. The only one you came up with that begins to hold water with me is McGrady. Malone and Butler never really had work ethic problems, and Strickland was the leader of a NCAA Tournament team. Bad examples... not examples of what I was looking for AT ALL, really, except for McGrady. And yeah, for the millionth time, I agree with you that it was only a good deal if we win a title sometime soon. First: our window is still open. Second: there were good reasons to pass on Gay at the time. That's aaaaallllllllllll I'm saying. It's not as monumentally stupid as you make it out to be. It's not Pippen-for-Polynice. It's not Dirk-for-Traylor.
2006 wasn't "any draft". It was the worst draft in a long time. I know that Charlotte, Chicago, Atlanta, Minnesota, Golden State, and Seattle would rather have Battier than the guy that they drafted in the Top 10. And besides, Battier does a much, much better job creating his own shot against Rudy Gay than Gay does against Battier.
The Swift contract wasn’t that bad to basically give him away. I believe he got a MLE deal, which is nothing for a young big man with athleticism. Every offseason teams overpay for young bigs. And again, all of those other teams that passed on him to pick worse players are idiots if he becomes better than whoever they picked. But at least you could rationalize why they picked those guys. But either way, the only players that didn’t have as much potential as Gay that went ahead of him were probably S.Williams and R.Foye, and they both were picked by teams with needs at their positions….and no way could the Hawks take a swingman again. Management is paid to read the future when it comes to player acquisitions. You get a lot of blame when a player with high potential that fills your needs isn’t even being considered. No, it wasn’t. We were no where close to a title, so you never give up high potential for a role player if you aren’t close. You surely don’t throw in an extra player and get nothing back. I can’t think of another time where a role player nabbed back such a high draft pick. It didn’t make sense because we weren’t close to a title. I can understand pissing away the future when you are close or when the trade will put you right there (i.e. Miami with Shaq). It’s obvious that you don’t trade a top 8 pick in a draft predicted to be 7 or 8 studs deep to get a known role player (i.e. you know he won’t be more than that) when you aren’t close to a title. Especially when one of those potential studs falls to you and fits some of your needs, in our case much needed perimeter athleticism which is what cost us the Mavs series IMO, or a potential 3rd person that could score on their own which is what cost us the Jazz series IMO. And I am not saying I am smarter than 7 GM’s. I’m saying in the case on the 06 draft, I’m smarter than whoever was picking for us. That draft had 6-7 big potential players. I don’t fault the other teams that picked ahead of us because they all picked one of those big potential players, except for arguably Min or ATL (who picked more for need). Not anyone who passed on him. Us, per se. I think anyone who gives up a top 8 pick in a draft where the cut-off is around the 7th or 8th pick for a role player when you aren’t close to a title is an idiot. Eliminate Gay from the equation…you don’t give up a #8 pick for a player like Battier period.
The 06 draft had 6-7 high potential players and most considered the rest average at best. That’s why us winning that meaningless game, and falling to #8, was such a big deal. The big issue then was us hoping one of those high potential players dropped. The top 7 picks from that year were Bargnani (Raptors), Aldridge (Blazers), Morrison (Bobcats), Thomas (Bulls), Williams (ATL), Roy (Blazers) and Foye (T-Pups). I don’t see any of those teams wanting Battier over who they chose, even today. Your closest bet is Thomas in Chicago, and they already had Deng and Nocioni so I don’t see them wanting Battier. Your next closest bet is ATL but they have too many wings as well…younger ones with more potential.
We're just gonna have to agree to disagree. Yeah, Swift wasn't making $10 mil or anything, but $5.5 mil of payroll for a guy you're getting very little out of still isn't trivial when you already have two max players. And more importantly, I think you're severely underestimating Battier's value at the point when we acquired him.
To me the overriding problem that we have now solved is that JVG would have eventually surrounded Yao and Tmac with 13 role players with strong defensive skills, good teamwork attitude and no shooting, dribbling or athletic skills. Thirteen Sefaloshas and Bowens. JVG would have then left after too many years of mediocrity and we would have been hosed for ten more years.
It's not about Shane Battier better than Rudy Gay.. There is a term in the statistics called estimated return. Basically if A has 50% chance of returning 100 , A's estimated return is only 50 meanwhile, if B has 90% chance of returning 80, B's estimated return is 72. Rudy Gay is A, no one denies that he has very high potential, but the risk is also high. Shane is B, you know what you get out of him every single night. And as a GM, you go for the guy who has the highest estimated return, but not necessarily the one who has the highest possible return. clear?
