Battier for Rudy Gay/Stromile is not paying dividends

You think they'll do a trade back? they took Swift back. hahaha juuust keeeding.

 

It was contingent on Brandon Roy not being available. Had Brandon Roy been available, they would have picked him, otherwise Memphis got the pick no matter what.

 

there's always other fish in the sea, to borrow a phrase.

I understand where you're going, eddie was extremely disppointing but my main point of contention, regardless of the parties, is that good teams rarely get an opportunity to draft a prospect like gay. the rockets were a good team who had a bad year. take the one advantage you get out of a bad year, a good draft pick.

the nba draft is so hit and miss and the talent is so marginal usually beyond the first 5-7 picks that when you land a rudy gay, you keep him. you take that risk.

 

I agree. It's simple denial. It was a bad trade, period. The fact that we sent him to a direct rival makes it even worse.

 

Battiers defense is very overrated. For every charge he takes, he gives up a blocking call. Every time someone praises his team defense, their big perimeter scorer lights us up. Kobe Bryant especially. And yes I know you can say Kobe does that to everyone, but Kobe doesn't average over 40 a game the past two years against every team in the league.

And yes count me as someone that wasn't happy with the trade even after a 52 win season. He was what 0-8 or 0-12 in the playoffs? And we paired him with two superstars that haven't even made it out of the 1st round? He wasn't going to bring us any closer to making it out of the second round than Gay would have. I mean aside from two games that series he stunk it up pretty bad.

As far as saying he's a professional off the court so what? It's not like Gay has a reputation for being a thug. I'm sure the Memphis Grizzlies commercials have Gay doing charity events sponsored by the NBA as well. If acting like a decent human being is what we traded for, well then I got news for you. That's setting a standard too low. You're supposed to act like a decent person. It's like Chris Rock's skit talking about parents that say, "Well I take care of my kids." No ****! You're supposed to. Make that argument when we draft one of Vernon Maxwell's illegitimate children and then trade him for someone with "intangibles."

And Swift may be garbage but he did fair alright in a running system with the Grizzlies under Hubie Brown which the Rockets lacked under JVG. I'm not saying Swift would have a breakout season under RA, but he might at least be worth tossing out there for 5-10 minutes a night. Either way he's a big body that could be used to provide 6 fouls like Charles Jones did for the Hakeem in the championship days.

Come to think of it. The only players on our team that have even made it to the second round are Mike James, Dikembe Mutombo, Alston, and Wells. All 4 of them are stinking it up, or are riding the pine. 3 bench players, one who is receiving a lot DNPs, and one starter who most everyone wants cut. Man I wish there was some way we could pick up Cassell for peanuts, back injuries and all just to provide a legit playoff presence to mentor our guards.

 

ya gimme rudy gay

 

I have read some but not all of the posts in this thread, so sorry in advance if I am re-hashing some previous points. Here is what I think every time this subject is brought up


1. Rudy Gay at one point was projected to be the #1 or #2 pick in the draft before his stock fell a little bit. He was clearly the best athlete available when the Rockets had their pick come up.

2. Rockets management obviously didn't subscribe to the theory of taking the best athlete available, especially after they lost out on Brandon Roy

3. The Rockets got raped, plain and simple, by the Grizzlies and it wasn't in giving up Gay but in not getting ENOUGH back. Some argue that dumping Swift was huge for us and counts as us getting another player along with Battier but I don't see it like that. We should have gotten a lower 1st round pick not just Battier

4. As the years go by, this trade is going to look worse and worse for the Rockets

5. Neither McGrady nor Yao had shown the ability to lead a team to a championship - hell, let alone get out of the first round. To think that adding someone like Shane Battier would instantly transform a team that makes the playoffs but fails to get out of the first round to a championship team is a severe reach in my opinion.


And another thing that kills me is hearing people say stuff like "Well, where would have Rudy Gay played with McGrady around?" Well for starters, Rudy could play the 4 with TMac at the 3 or 2 or if McGrady was playing the 2, Gay could easily play the 3. Trust me - I think both of them could co-exist on the court at the same time. We needed guys who could create their own shots and Gay is one of those guys plus he is young and a great future building block. To just dismiss him for an overrated role player like Battier is something that still brings my blood to a boil. I can honestly say that I have never been more upset with the Rockets than I was that night.

I can only hope and pray that Morey subscribes to the philosophy of drafting the best athlete available when it comes to the draft.

And isn't like the Rockets have had some other bad trades (the Eddie Griffin one as well as Elvin Hayes for Jack Marin), but that deal along with the one that got us Rafer Alston in the first place (for ironically Mike James) are 2 of the worst deals in team history and the man wanting those deals is no longer with the organization. As pgabriel said earlier, there's a reason why he is on ESPN and not on the Rockets bench this season.

 

I said the trade was a mistake then and I stand by that. Eliminate Gay from the equation. I can’t think of many other instances where a decent role player (which Shane is/was at the time) without a history of good playoff performances has nabbed a top 8 pick AND another player. Can anyone?

Now bringing Gay back into the equation, he was one of the top prospects in that draft and played a position that was not a strength for us. You rarely get a chance to draft a player with that kind of potential. Other teams like Dallas are better now because they realized how young talent could make some impact when given minutes and eventually turn into a stud to go along with the stars already there (see Howard & Harris). The Suns did the same when they first picked Amare.

The trade would have made sense for a team that was truly close to a championship but we weren’t before the trade and the acquisition didn’t put us close either. So how can you say the trade was a success when you give up “potential stud” for role player when the role player doesn’t put you over the top (or even near it in our case)?

And JVG got Steve Francis to commit to playing defense. You don’t think he could have worked with a swingmen like Gay (tall, fast and extremely LONG)? Gay was a good defender in college.

 

What makes everyone think that if we kept gay and stro, that we will be a championship team? how's memphis doing these days or last few years?

 

I always believed that trading for Battier was a move endorsed/pined by Van Gundy to help him salvage his job. Irrational or not, he would rather have Battier (the dependable vet) than to risk having a rookie to develop.

 

That last question you asked could have been said about Battier Draft Day 2006.

 

Which part of the Rockets 105-99 loss to MEM are you struggling with? The part where Yao and McGrady combined for 63 of the 99 points? Maybe it's the combined 9 for 15 from the field and 23 points Gay and Swift combined for?

 

All through that year, I was saying "Tank!" We almost lose enough, then JVG sends Juwon in the make sure we win a meaningless game at the end of the season, so we can't get Brandon Roy. THEN, this trade.

EVEN if they had a deal worked out before the draft, when a player like Rudy Gay drops into your lap, you have to say "Deals OFF!" and draft that guy. He was projected # 1 going into the year. What did we get? A sixth man off the bench from Memphis, and we dump a guy in the doghouse. Woo.

That was one of the dumbest moves I have ever witnessed. The JVG/CD combo was no friend to the franchise's future.

Even now, I am no fan of Shane Battier. He's like Ryan Bowen with a corner set shot. I would LOVE to trade him for a starting 1,2, or 3, preferably packaged with some of our other sub-starter detrius - Ralston, James, and Head.

 

Battier for Udonis Haslem.

 

Noone said keeping Gay would make us a championship team - the argument is that trading for Battier wouldn't make us one.

As far as the second part of your post...wow. The logic demonstrated by you in that is enough to end this discussion. That Memphis sucks is your defense of Battier? Hello - Rudy Gay wouldn't be asked to carry the team here.

 

Battier, Morey's first bad move?

 

More like Dawson's last bad move

 

Battier was supposed to be Morey's move.

 

As someone who absolutely HATED the trade on draft day, sometimes I do wonder what would happen had we not made the trade.

1. I wonder how many minutes the Rockets would've given Gay, given they were in a win-now mode?
2. I wonder how JVG would utilize Gay, given that everyone on the Rockets not named T-Mac or Yao had turned into a spot up shooter in his offense.
3. I wonder how many wins the Rockets would've sacrificed to help Gay develop.

I look at history of very talented but raw players drafted by very good teams, and to be honest, the development process has usually been very long.

I love how everyone assumes that had we drafted Gay, the Rockets would automatically turn into an up-tempo team - which uses Gay's athletism the best - and then play Gay 30 minutes a game to help him develop. When in reality, the guy would be stuck on the bench playing 8 minutes a game, getting pull out after every defensive mishap, and will basically be a mid-range jump shooter ala Juwan on offense.

Had we gotten Adelman one year early, I think we might've actually kept Gay. But dude was NOT going to fit in with JVG no matter what.

 

Trade down for Thabo.