Battier for Rudy Gay/Stromile is not paying dividends

PEOPLE LISTEN UP!!!!!!!!!!


<br>

some of the arguments going on here are both valid. there's basically a side saying gay is better player overall (which is a no-brainer) and another side saying how gay won't fit into the rockets team so having shane is better.

I guess what people should be pissed off about is not about the trade, because I really don't hink the trade is bad for us, but for how little we got back in return of rudy gay. there's no doubt having shane on this team would be better for us than having rudy gay against most matchups in the NBA(except for last night obviously). So the fact seems to be that we got very little in return for gay's talent. if you wanna bash, don't bash shane, bash that we got very little in return.

 

There's no point in addressing anything related to this issue rationally. It in no way surprises me that the notion that Shane Battier is better than Mario Elie (even typing that out pains me) arises from the same contingency that posits that we would have drafted Thebo Seljdkjkrej irregardless of the trade as its primary defense of Battier.

 

You logic is incorrect since I said Battier has never won anyone a playoff game. Battier has won a total of 3 playoff games in his 7 year career and it all happened last year and I argue that he wasn't a difference maker in any of those games. Yao and Tmac have won a fair share of playoff games.

Ginoboli, Terry, and Cassell are and have been consistently third or worse options on their respective teams.

Terry behind Dirk, Howard, and Stackhouse
Ginobili behind Robinson, Duncan, Parker
Cassell behind Dream and Clyde, or Robinson and Allen, or Garnett and Spree (you can argue he was ahead of spree)

 

This is sad. Yeah, Shane's not an All-Star, nor is he a defensive player of the year. How many times have we appreciated what Shane Battier has done for this team? All the hustle plays, all the smart plays, all the big shots (he's made some he's missed some). Rudy Gay is a good player but lets not overlook the fact he's on Memphis and he gets to run wild. It's not like he's averaging 30 points a game...

I will take Shane's defense and hustle in a new system where offense is already emphasized over Rudy Gay simply because we have enough players now to make up the gap between Rudy Gay and Shane Battier on offense (Wells, Francis, James).

Let's not mob on Shane Battier because he beat off the dribble by Baron f*cking Davis. Not many people can guard that guy, let alone a 6-8 SF...You guys are cut-throat. In my opinion, the trade wasn't that bad but it is true that Rudy Gay is making it look worse and worse by the day. But then again, he plays on Memphis. Take it for what you will. Shane/Gay is a different arguement altogether than is Shane a good player or is he important to this team?

I think it's easy to look like a bad defender when you have to guard guys like Kobe, Davis, Pierce/Allen, Melo, even Iverson at times, Joe Johnson, LeBron James, D-Wade, etc. etc. etc. I don't think you should see him get beat by these guys and then call him a bad defender. No one can defend these guys, that's why they are elite NBA scorers. His job is to make the game as hard as he can for them.

Rudy Gay is better than Shane Battier, yeah, but we weren't going to draft him anyways if we weren't getting Shane Battier. So there's no point in looking at the trade like that. Look at Shane's positives, and I still think he has a lot. He's just not playing that well this season so far, but he's not the only one.

Exactly.

 

I understand your issues with not getting younger/athletic. That was the big area most of us (including me -- a big Brandon Roy and Ronnie Brewer guy) wanted to address. But I don't quite agree that trading a high lottery pick for a quality NBA veteran is a poor move. Gay was an 8th pick. He may have been out of the top 10 if we didn't take him. Evidently, there wasn't a ton of interest in him from most teams. At the time, Gay was perceived as someone with a lot of promise, but someone who could also end up like another Tim Thomas or Darius Miles. In his second year, he's turning out to be better than the expectations -- but that doesn't mean the expectations were unreasonable.

Also, look back historically at the players chosen with the 8th pick (or 7-9 picks, if you like). There were some very good players, sure, but it definitely isn't a certainty that you get a quality player there.

 

The trade sucked. I said that at draft time, and there's no point in beating a dead horse.

 

I don't want to hate on Shane. I'll just say I never liked the trade from the start.

 

That's all I'm trying to say. I'm not saying Battier is trash. Just that we made this trade for the short term instead of the long term and I don't like that philosophy unless you're on the verge of winning a championship. We were coming off a lottery year when we made the trade. Nowhere NEAR winning a championship.

 

I know. Elie is what Battier dreams about being.

 

I agree, it only makes sense if you can make yourself a legit title contender.

But I think that's what we were, heading into last season. It's never going to be easy, but we were in a group of 5 or 6 teams with a legit shot of winning the whole thing. We were 5 minutes away from getting to round two. When healthy, we matched up well against San Antonio (the team we would have faced in the WCF if we got past the first two rounds). I believe we would have been favored to beat any team that came out of the East.

 

It isn't now, but it may have been at the beginning of the season.

 

I cant think of anything on that list which Rudy Gay would/could not be able to do just as good if not better than Battier.

I can certainly think of a number of things which Rudy Gay can do which Battier can never come close to accomplishing.

Main reason being, Battier is limited physically.

Remember, Battier by himself is not a bad player. He is decent. The problem is what we gave up for him.

I also want to add that Battier's numbers are lower despite teams leaving him open. Rudy's numbers are better despite teams focusing on him. I wonder how much better Gay would shoot if he were to recieve the Battier treatment where teams leave him open just to concentrate on Tmac and Yao.

Battier is the kind of player you look to aquire after loading up on talent like Rudy Gay. Not the other way.

That is exactly why Jerry West was eager to do this trade. He had learned his lesson.

 

It's a trade that will haunt the Rockets for years.

 

I'm not too sure about that. We were coming off a lottery season, albeit because of all the injuries to Yao and TMac. The season before, we lost to the mav-pricks despite winning the first 2 games on the road. Last year, had we beaten utah and the mavs beaten GS, they would have killed us in the 2nd round. Just my opinion.

Like I said, it's more about the 'draft for this season' philosophy that I have a problem with when you're coming off a lottery season the year before.

It's a gamble to draft this way and if you lose (ie. don't make it out of the first round), you could end up paying for it for the next decade.

Of course, if we win the championship this year, I reserve the right to retract everything I've said in this thread.

 

I liked the trade when I thought Shane was actually good. He's not..he is extremely average...something the rockets staff should have known when they traded for him.

pathetic.

 

That's an interesting point. I would be interested to see Rudy's percentage on catch and shoot jumpers, versus jumpers he takes off the dribble. For most players, it should be higher. But for some (like T-Mac), it's actually less.

I would be fairly surprised if Battier doesn't end up more efficient in terms of shooting percentages (TS%) by the end of the year. He's slumping now, but I think he even admitted in the preseason that his jumper usually is off at the beginning of the year.

 

I didn't consider the Rockets to be anything close to a lottery team. I think Battier was instrumental to helping us to 52 wins last season, and that's with T-Mac/Yao missing a significant chunk of the year. If we had Yao for even 70 games, I could have easily won 55+ games. Who knows, we might have even edged out the Spurs for the third seed.

And, yes, it was a gamble in some sense. But drafting Gay also would have been a gamble. He wasn't a sure thing, though when we look at things in retrospect it's easy to forget that.

 

Is there a NBA game stat that measures potential? None. There's no stat when you haven't played a game. Yet, judging on talent, measuring up potential is one of the big reason Gms get paid.

Granted, it involves a bit of guesswork, luck. But at the end of the day that's how they will be evaluated. They gets credited when they guessed right too.

 

Well, in a way, every stat measures potential. Why do we look at stats in sports? To project future performance.

What do savvy GMs rely on to gauge NBA potential? It's not something they pick out of the blue, right? It has to be something real and concrete, if it is at all reliable. Well, why can't such a thing be quantifiable?

It's not as simple as looking at a couple basketball stats and physical measurements, though that's a start. But in theory, what part of player evaluation simply can't be broken down into numbers?

And I think decision making, in any field, should be judged based to the information available at the time. Not whether I was lucky or unlucky.

 

the point is we SHOULD have wanted him. rick wouldve have probably drafted him. we were too close minded. if mac is done in 3 year yao will probably still have 2 years left and they would have a bonafide all star by then. how much better would you think gay would get learning under tmac, the player he looked up to