Battier for Rudy Gay/Stromile is not paying dividends

If Shane is not making open threes, he doesn't need to be in the game. He's a smart defender, but his athleticism will always hold him back. Putting him on the Kobe's and Baron's is outright ridiculous. He's on ice skates against those guys. I said at the beginning of the year that I wanted to move him for a starting caliber 4 or a 2 guard. I still stand behind that. Having 2 slow-footed players on D and having 3 non-scoring players on O will never work against teams like the Warriors.

 

Using this same logic, you wouldn't trade Battier for Gasol either.

 

Shane's trading value is not enough to get a caliber 2 let alone a starting 4.

 

How is Shane an elite role player. Cassell, Horry, Fisher, Rick Fox, Jason Terry, Ginobili, Horace Grant, Rodman are/were elite role players. Shane is just a role player.

Let me know when Shane wins anyone a playoff game.

 

Its been my dream to trade Battier since the draft day nightmare last year. Regardless of if he would have been a Rocket is beside the point, Thabo Sefolosha would have been the wrong pick too. Rudy and Tmac would've been a match up nightmare for pretty much every team in the league.

 

If we look at his stat, he is playing very badly.

 

Which is only true if you can be absolutely sure they would have made it out of the first round with Gay. Also, for this logic to apply to remarks made right now, you also have to be sure that the Rockets won't make it out of the first round in te next few years. I think that's a big assumption. I think the Rockets will go far in the playoffs this year.

 

Thanks for the thread!! The starter of the thread couldn't have put it better than that. PERIOD.

Who says you need all these scorers? Do we really need a guy who can't hit the open shot, or who can't create for others (Battier). HINT HINT That may be the reason the offense is stagnant. Everytime he gets the ball, I feel those are wasted secs off the shot clock! lol Anybody can do the triple threat move, you know all he is gonna do is pivote, pass and run. Thats all. Not a threat at all. As for someone saying Stromile was lost when he was here, sure he didn't play his best, but the guy was playing with Ryan Bowen, Andre Barrett, old David Wesley, Scott Padgett, oh and its that the year the brought in Charles Oakley? I could be wrong on that though.

 

"Intangibles" is just a catch all category for all the tangible things he does that don't show up in the box score. It's a misnomer.

His tangibles:

- Spaces the floor with (generally) accurate outside shooting. He's been off this year, but rest assured he'll be around 40% by the end of the season
- Good offensive rebounder for a wing player
- A disciplined and versatile individual defender. Not shutdown, but still effective.
- Excellent defender in transition. He runs back hard, gets deflections, and draws charges.
- Good help defender on the perimeter and around the basket. Contests more shots on the perimeter than any other player on the team, and he makes more defensive plays around the basket than any other guard/wing on the team.
- Can play big minutes for you, and he hardly ever gets injured. Over the course of a season, that's important.

Those are the tangible, positive contributions you can expect from Battier. They impact winning, no less directly than PPG/RPG/APG numbers.

 

I agree that Robert Horry would be a more ideal role player, since he's won championships on THREE different teams! He's one of the best role players in NBA history.

How can you say that Elie is better then Battier? Thats probably nostalgia talking, cuz I remember a guy who had problems finishing layups one year during the Fianls. What does he have over Shane?

And you do realize that Bowen is even less athletic, less quick, and more one-dimensional than Shane, right? At least, Shane has a post game (which I don't know why the Rickets aren't using)

Why I'd keep Shane...

-He's a versatile defender, able to guard anyone from guards to power forwards.
-He takes pressure off Tmac on defense, which is especially helpful when we play a team like the Lakers.
-He can shoot the three
-He can score in the post
-He'll take the charge/dive on the floor for loose balls
-He complements Yao, with his three point shooting
-He gives off effort and energy
-He's not a cheap defensive player like how B. Bowen or D. Harris are
-He doesn't complain
-He's a great person in the community (yes, basketball isn't everything)

Then, you guys also say that he doesn't win games for us. Well, thats the franchise players' jobs. Shane can only do so much. At least he doesn't lose games for us. He did hit the game winner for us against the Lakers, right? If his playoff record is an indication of his value, then we should get rid of Tmac, Yao, and almost everyone else on the Rockets.

 

We were not going to pick Rudy Gay with that pick anyways! The pick would have been Thabo Sefolosha had we stayed put. I wish I had a link to CD or whomever said that, but I defintely read that fact in quotes on this BBS.

With that said, I'm glad we traded that pick and Stromile Swift for Shane Battier. We bascially got to swap salaries for a much better player. However, I also believe that we should have at least got Memphis' late 1st in addition to Shane. Because we didn't, Memphis got the better end of the deal, no question.

And to add insult to injury, they didn't go with Thabo Sefolosha at that pick, instead choosing to go with the consensus pick, Rudy Gay. A soon-to-be franchise player for them for many years to come... Rudy Gay just as easily could have not worked out for them, but it did.

 

Elie had problems finishing layups? if you frame it like that that helps your arugment but elie was clearly a better ball handler, but elie was a guard. elie was the better one on one defender. battier is a pretty good team defender, elie's shot was more reliable.

 

By that logic I guess Tmac and Yao are not elite players either? Let me know when they win anyone a playoff series

I consider Shane as good as Fisher, Fox, and Grant. Horry of course is legendary as a role player come play off time, but on a nightly basis during the regular season they are a wash. Cassel has been on an all star team, and Terry and Ginobili play primary roles for their teams. I don't really consider them role players, but designating who is a role player and who isn't is a matter of opinion. I agree they are better than Shane though. Rodman is the only example where I would consider a pure role player that is clearly better than Shane at least production wise. Of course stability wise Shane is much more reliable. I suspect most GM's in the league would consider Battier one of the better role players. Anyway it is kind of a pointless argument since it is purely opinion either way.

A more interesting debate is what you think you might get for him if you were to trade him.

 

It keeps getting better.

 

We've been over this ad nauseam already and it's pretty much becoming a generally accepted belief that we lost out in the trade.

I think the only year that you can make an argument for Battier being more valuable was last year (Gay's rookie year). It's all downhill for Battier and uphill for Gay from now on.

This trade set us back a few years.

 

rockets would have a 'big 3' if they kept Gay.
teams wouldn't be able to guard Tmac/Gay/Yao. why do you think Battier is always open for the corner 3? his man cheats off him to double tmac/yao.

however i think a solid PG is more important than another swingman. that trade should have been for a PG with the same value as gay/swift.
athletic swingmen are a dime a dozen i think just look at how many the Hawks have and how many sit the bench in the NBA. they aren't as important are sought after as PG/C.

 

Right, except that my response was directed towards the claim that he has an "all-around game."

By no means is Battier trash. He's a good player for all the reasons you stated above, and I like having him on the team. But to suffer an entire season and then trade a high lottery pick for him, especially after our lack of athleticism was exposed repeatedly as our biggest weakness, was just completely moronic.

In the long run, it could work itself out, due to the fact that trading for Scola would not have been possible without trading Swift. If Scola pans out, things don't look so bad. But right now, it's an embarrassment.

 

I tried to address it rationally. elie did so many things for the rockets, especially the second year, its not even funny.

 

That's really irrelevant to the discussion. They COULD have kept Rudy Gay. The option was there without any hypotheticals or trades needed. The fact that they may have been planning to make a different mistake doesn't really matter. If they had, it just means that this thread would be titled we should have drafted Rudy Gay instead of Thabo Sefolosha.

 

Agreed!!