Battier for Rudy Gay/Stromile is not paying dividends

I just think that the team is too short sighted and limited. I thought Brewer was the best choice of all around atheletic player than gay. Its hard to win against talent when you have rafer,Battier,and Hayes playing major minutes when either Yao or Tracy isn't playing well. This team is still missing the legit 3rd scorer on a consistent basis.

 

if rockets had the 7th pick they were taking roy and would not have traded for battier. morey's math said gay was going to be a poor nba player...cd agreed. the other people considered were brewer and seflosha...they were going to take seflosha. they instead traded for battier. jvg agreed with the decision to trade for battier instead of drafting seflosha.

 

Most of us that are paying attention don't need to be reminded of that. What gets obscurred by the Van Gundy apologists is playing Juwan Howard in a meaningless win over DEN which otherwise would have resulted in a coin toss with BOS and MINN for positions 5-6-7. Any mention of Sefalosha as the secondary target only serves to reinforce how much Morey was asleep at the switch. Given CD was a lame duck, I doubt he shares any of the blame.

 

Yeah, but the question raised by durvasa et al is whether Van Gundy had a hand in, or at least agreed with, the decision not to draft and keep Gay, instead of messing around with all this Sefolosha crap, a trade, etc. And my recollection is that Van Gundy was reported to be ecstatic with the deal, which suggests he was hardly crying about giving up Gay.

I still think Battier was a great pickup. I'd bet even money that if we had Gay right now, we'd have team balance and chemistry issues (different from the ones we have now), and Morey would be out shopping Gay for a Battier type.

 

I remember last year several senior citizens on this board seriously questioned Gay's performance and potentials with plenty of LOGICAL evidences. As a fan who has beening following BIG EAST basketball for many years but a newbie here, I was bashed mercilessly for predicting Rudy Gay's NBA success. Wish I had time to find those old threads.

I am a big Battier fan, he is a great guy and a good NBA player. But Gay can be an ALL STAR and he is improving to that level rapidly. What can I say, another embarrassing trade in ROX history.

 

Will I see your point of view but I think otherwise. Rudy Gay is developing into a first class NBA player and any team would love to have this talent on their team! The way the game is going to day it seems Battier is loosing his significance as a great defensive stopper! To be honest I have never seen him stop a top level player from doing just what he wanted and his glue effect seems to have become unstuck. I can't understand why he is even a starter on our team.

 

Morey's math said Gay was going to be a poor NBA player? Well now I've lost a lot of confidence in his math skills.

 

If this is the case, Morey needs to get his money back from MIT.

I just get furious when I think about this trade.

 

I don't think so for the purpose of getting traded. He just did it out of frustration if anything. Yao was 16 years old at the time that Horry threw the towel at Suns head coach Danny Ainge.

I'm sure that after the Barkley trade the Rockets made with the Suns 11 years ago, Jerry West probably kept his eye on Horry to see how he would fit in with the Suns. I'm sure that if he saw him not fitting in well as the season wore on, he was probably going to try to make a deal for Horry. Well, shortly after Horry got suspended indefinitely by the Suns, Jerry West probably got on the phone with the Suns about possibly trading for him, and the Suns just went for it, acquiring Cedric Ceballos in return. Jerry West only knew that Horry would fit in far better with Shaq and the Lakers because of the kind of role he played with Hakeem and the Rockets.

 

Another problem is that many of us thought that Gay would end up being a very good NBA player and that making the Gay for Battier trade was crazy. Again it seems that the fans know more than the people who are supposed to be in charge.

 

No way. We don't understand anything. The Rockets are exactly where they want to be right now. Once they learn how to play basketball from Rick Idleman, we'll all be proven wrong. They have exactly the right players who will be playing in the right system. The lack of effort and intensity are part of the plan.

 

battier is better than seflosha, not as good as brewer, dont know about gay...he plays the 4 alot on a terrible team, but has shown promise...so if they were going to draft seflosha its a good trade, if they were going to draft brewer, its a bad trade, if they were going to draft gay (which they never considered due to morey's math), its up in the air

 

I recall Morey saying before the draft that Gay was a "high-risk, high-reward" player. That's the nature of his method -- it's not about trying to predict what will happen, but rather considering the odds of various scenarios playing out. I'm sure, like all of us, he saw the potential in Gay. But he also saw the potential downsides, the potential development time, and he felt we'd be better served in the short term trading the pick for a solid veteran. I don't know if he negotiated the "good" and the "bad" of keeping Gay using math or not, but I think there are a number of more traditional teams (that were already 50-win caliber) that would have made a similar decision in that spot.

 

And therein lies one of my major complaints with $Ball for basketball. The Mavericks have averaged 58 wins over the last 6 seasons. They have paraded a cast of characters through their locker room that would NEVER have been involved in a $Ball equation...younger more expensive Juwan Howard, Raef LaFrentz, Antawn Jamison, Antoine Walker, Keith Van Horn and Austin Croshere. But as a consequence to these $Ball "undesireables", Dallas built up trade commodities. I greatly dislike Cuban the owner...but he is far more willing to take a risk...hiring the NBA oddity of Don Nelson as a case in point.

Battier...as you've stated....was "safe"...but IMHO it didn't take much basketball saavy to see they were more than a Battier-skill set away from the WC elites. In a game getting faster, they got slower.

Just my very jaded opinion...if the time ever comes the Rockets decide they need to approach the NBA game as it's being currently emphasized...there are going to be a lot of people very dissappointed in what Battier ultimately returns on the open market. As I've pointed out previously, Battier's high $Ball number was IMHO driven by being on a team where Gasol suddenly became a 20 ppg scorer and Mike Miller was 6th MoY.

 

I might be remebering this all wrong but didn't CD admit to getting bad information on Gay? Gay threw a tantrum at a workout word came back to them on that and they didn't want to risk another Eddie Griffin. The bad info being the tantrum was really a nothing issue.

 

OK, but you also have to consider all the money Cuban was and is willing to spend. Morey brought in players that aren't your prototypical "$Ball" players (I 'll assume you mean cheap and efficient by that term). Francis, Bonzi, and James weren't exactly leading the league in +/-.

Dallas has put together a nice team over the last 5 years, but they've done it spending way more money than our owner would be willing to spend. Oh, and they've also been one of the leaders in using statistical analysis in their player evaluation (read Cuban's blog, and this will be evident). So, I don't think that example serves your point very well.

It's clear to me that the team we're trying to model our decision making after is San Antonio. There's a reason they are considered the model franchise. Look at the type of players they've brought in. Outside of Parker and Ginobili, none of them have superior athletic ability. And they've done is in a fiscally responsible way.

This has nothing to do with relying on stats, which is something you keep harping on. Since Cuban has been with the Mavs, they've used stats as much as anyone. Hollinger's "stats" told him that Gay would be a very good player (he predicted Gay would be the ROY). It's a difference in philosophy. You like Dallas -- spend a lot of money on talented offensive players, on athletes. The Rockets are attempting to go the San Antonio route.

I don't agree with your last point. If you look at why the Grizzlies were successful that year (don't know what you mean by "high $Ball number"), it was their defense. And a year ago, Gasol and Miller did not have any dropoff in performance, they brought in a supposedly better player in Rudy Gay for the current NBA to replace Battier, they brought back a high flying athlete in Stromile Swift, and what happened to their team? Just look at their record in which Gasol and Miller and Gay played, if you like. It was significantly worse, and the reason was defense. They went from being one of the top defensive teams to the absolute worse in a single season. That directly impacts their win total, and it has nothing to do with Gasol being a 20 ppg scorer and Miller winning a 6th MoY. As I've said before, I'm not saying that change is fully to do with Battier. But, clearly, Gasol and Miller weren't the only reason that the Grizzlies were better in Battier's last year than they are now.

 

We lost more than just Battier.

 

You need to first realize who the president of basketball operation/gm is for the Mavs. He is one of the best talent evaluator in the league. Stats is useful, but should be in a complementary role. That's what I'm saying all along.

No, Rockets can't just mimic San Antonio. Spurs has their core of team in place with Menu, Paker, and Duncun, and did get two of the 3 with low picks btw. Spurs did what they do partly out of necessity, because they
don't get high pick for a long time. Watch what Spurs would do if they were in Rox's situation. I bet they wouldn't go the same route. It sucks to be a wanna-be.

It actually all starts with talent evaluation, which Rockets haven't been good at and I don't see it much better under Morey so far.

 

Which is what I said. I went through this before (in this thread, I believe), but we can rehash it.

The Grizzlies went from being 18th in offense and 2nd in defense (05/06), to 12th in offense and 30th in defense (06/07). In other words, the offense may have improved somewhat, but the defense did a complete 180. At the team level, that explains the dropoff.

It can be explained by coaching (went to a faster pace style, with less emphasis on getting stops in the half court). But I think, to a large extent, it can be explained by the loss of veterans who know how to defend -- specifically Eddie Jones, Shane Battier, and Bobby Jackson. They lost some size in the middle with Wright and Tsakalidis leaving. Among those players, I think Battier was considered the best team defender and he played the most minutes that year.

My point is that defense still matters. Memphis elected to go younger, more athletic, and faster-paced. That's fine, they're rebuilding. And their offense has actually improved (18th in 05/06, 12th last year, and 10th this year). But they are still a significantly worse team because they don't have veterans who know how to defend.

 

I don't disagree with your main points. Surely, I can't discount the acquisition of Nowitzki and Howard by Dallas. But, again, Dallas spent a ton of money to get where they are. That's a constraint we have to deal with.

And I'm not saying the Rocket are trying to mimic San Antonio. But there's nothing wrong with following the general principles of good teams. San Antonio made smart late round draft picks (Parker and Ginobili), lucked out with Duncan, and beyond that they've looked to surround those three with cheap and efficient role players that can play defense and hit shots.

The lottery is always going to be a gamble, even for good teams. But being good (or lucky) at the draft isn't close to being enough. Isiah Thomas does great in the draft, but he's still a horrible GM. I think San Antonio might have lucked out a bit with the big three draft picks (or maybe they're just really good), but they've done a great job complementing those guys. I think if their management was handling our team, they'd be looking for similar type role players to put around Tracy and Yao.