How so? We would not have picked Rudy Gay if we didnt swing the deal to rid ourselves of Slowmile Swift. that is not conjecture, it is fact. SO, for the slower ones out there.... IF we did not trade for Battier, we still would not have drafted Gay. PERIOD
Two years ago, even if we had Ron Artest then, I still would've said keep Battier. Our team was predicated on perimeter shooting and strong defense, mainly help defense, which is of course Shane's biggest strong point. However, as I began to think about it, and especially after seeing how Gay has (and would've) turned out (ie 20 point scorer) and the addition of a dominant defender in Artest, I would trade Shane for Gay now. I know Gay still doesn't play very smart defense, but he can't be any worse than Tmac (when he's being lazy) is right now and certainly has the potential to become a very good 1-on-1 defender with quickness, length, and athleticism. As Rudy steadily improves, the relative strengths/weakness gaps between these two are beginning to lessen: -Rudy has good jumpshot that is developing every year. Plus he shoots a very close 3pt% to Shane (34.6% Rudy compared to Shane's 37.7%). -Rudy is a much better scorer, especially inside the paint & three point line. This is shown by his 46.1% to Shane's dismal 42.8%. -In time, Rudy can be just as effective as a defender as Shane, not to mention he can also guard some point guards depending on the lineup. In a word: versatility. Of course now with the addition of Artest, we don't really need a guy like Gay now, and Shane can really just focus on playing like he always does. All in all, I have no regrets about the trade and who knew how Gay would've turned out under the tutelage of JVG anyways? I love Shane's humbleness and hustle plays, but I can't help but drool at the idea of having a potential young stud wing player in Gay playing alongside Tmac, Artest, and Yao. Just for fun, this would be my dream lineup: PG: Rafer (not really a dream piece, but it will do) SG: Tracy SF: Ron Artest PF: Scola C: Yao Rotation Rudy Gay Aaron Brooks Carl Landry (pending re-signing) Brent Barry so on..... drooolll............
I'd like to note once again: FOR THE FRIGGIN BILLIONTH AND A HALF TIME, WE WERE GOING TO DRAFT THABO SEFOLOSHA IF WE KEPT OUR DRAFT PICK. Please state the known facts when you talk about the Gay/Battier trade. When you say "Well if we kept Rudy Gay..." it just means you are talking from your own personal opinion and conveniently ignore the known facts of what the Rockets would have done.
why? gay was available but jvg came out and said it was sefalosha they coveted, as far as available rookies - not gay. rudy's motor, imo, may have been a big deterrant.
True, and a player who won't whine or care much.Every GM would love him more if he was playing for 1 mil and was on the trading block.
I must be really slow. There are two ways you can frame the debate over what happened in the 2006 draft: (1) "Should we have traded our 8th pick for Battier or used it on the top remaining player on our board?" (2) "Would we have been better off using our pick to draft Rudy Gay rather than trade it for Shane Battier?" (1) was the choice the Rockets were making. (2) is the choice many here feel the Rockets should have been making. In other words, the pro-Gay crowd believe the Rockets got two things wrong: they didn't have Gay high enough on their draft board, and they didn't keep the pick.
that isnt how most of the people around here frame it and you know it. I recognize that you and some of the other brighter guys werent happy that the ROckets were not interested in Gay, but I'd say that no less than 75% of the whining over that trade/non-pick are of the opinion that we drafted Rudy Gay cause we wanted him and then traded him for peanuts. is this not true? That is the argument I always see....and it is a moot point since the Rockets under JVG had ZERO interest in some flashy, low motor "superstar in the making" (potential is the worst thing to ever happen to this board, so much whining and knashing of the teeth over "superstar potential" that in most cases isnt even close to recognized )
Tell me how? Its been known for a long time that Gay wasnt the target at that spot, as its been mentioned in this thread. Also, usually when basketball trades are made on draft day, teams discuss what players should be drafted in order to complete the trade. In this case, we chose Gay for Memphis because that is what it would have taken for us to get Battier from them. Thanks.
Well first of all, I've tried to keep myself on the fence regarding the Battier/Gay debate, though on the whole I'm sure I've argued more in favor of Battier. You may be right that most arguing in favor of Gay don't realize that the Rockets weren't particularly interested in him. But unless the Rockets were incapable of taking Gay with that pick, it is not (strictly speaking) a moot point. If I am a huge Rudy Gay fan and I'm convinced he would have saved our franchise, I'm not going to forget that we skipped over him simply because the Rockets weren't interested in him. That would probably infuriate me even more.
I agree that JVG probably had no interest in Rudy Gay from the very start. But I can't help but feel a tinge of annoyance at your sarcastic attitude towards the notion of "potential" and "superstar." I know it can be incredibly overrated, but what if we had gone after Gay instead? We know now that he can easily be a star player, not necessarily a "superstar," but his base skills + athleticism could've easily replaced Battier's current role now. Just because a player doesn't turn out to be a full-fledged "superstar," he can still be an All-Star player. I know this isn't the case most of the time, but Rudy Gay was projected to be a very solid player at the very least from the start. Plus if we had drafted him, we could still trade him for Battier anyways.
Point still remains that the Rockets SHOULD have had Gay higher than Sefolosha on their board, and that's was my highest disappointment with this deal because it goes to show that Memphis was better at evaluating talent than Houston was. Gay went through periods where he was a projected top 3 pick, to not have him highest on the board is insanity, in my opinion. I'm in no way advocating that we would be better with Gay over Battier, but I am expressing my utmost disappointment in our franchise's talent evaluation, therefore the argument of "We weren't going to draft Rudy Gay in the first place" does nothing but constantly remind me of something that was wrong rather than alleviate my concern for the Gay/Battier situation.
Someone mentioned it above earlier but if we did not do the Gay-Battier trade, we would still be stuck with Stromile Swift's contract. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we still have his contract, I am almost positive we would not have had the cap space last season to sign Scola and Francis. So therefore, we would not have Gay and Scola together. Battier vs Gay will always be debated, but I think a lot of people on this board overlook the fact with the trade we got rid of a bad contract in Stro's, which IMO makes the trade in favor of Battier. I have seen Gay play only once last year, but his D blows. To top that off, in 2 years if he keeps averaging 20+ points, he most likely will be given a $12-14mil per year contract, which would have made keeping him even worse. For this reason, I'd take Battier any day, even with Artest.
If u don't think Gay is a sf, then u don't watch hoops. Gay on physical talents alone, great coaching, and the rox team defensive gameplan could've become a good defender. People tend to have amnesia becuz the rox were top 5 in pts allowed, fg%, and rebounds even while playing with the smaller wesley. Tracy could expend more energy on defense because they had more creators on offense. It also funny how people like to bang on howard, but when yao would go down, howard stepped up. Not only that, tracy didn't always have to spoon feed him for point blank shots.
Yea, but hypothetically we still would have Gay under two years of his contract left (assuming we would've had a fourth year option on it), which in that time frame, I think we could've beat teams like the Mavs in the Playoffs...... of course this is all very hypothetical, but its not wrong to dream right? (Not hating on Shane though)
But who's higher on your draft board isn't purely based on talent evaluation. No one doubted Gay's talent. The question was how that would translate onto our team, and what were the risks involved. Sefalosha maybe didn't have the same upside or raw talent, but he may very well have been a surer bet to be a positive contributor on our team. And by "positive contributor", I don't mean score more points. I mean help the team win more games.
We have performed far better in the face of injuries the last two years than we did in 05/06, and you know it.
