Wait, quick someone start a thread about winning some meaningless game that cost us a shot at Brandon Roy. I don't think it's been done before.
Battier > Gay That's all I got to say. At least for me. Name me better outside defender in the league. It's another thing that you guys fell in love for flying dunks. After all, who mentioned Gay? He was traded as pick, I can go far and say he was even Grizzlies pick that year.
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wow i had no idea he was only 22 hes nowhere even near his his prime yet, for some reason i always thought he was 25. I never liked the trade but we wouldn't have gotten to where we have the last 2 seasons without battier, hes shut down so many scorers and has been such a huge piece to this team. But we still haven't even got out of the first round so it pretty much means nothing. The way Rudy has developed a lineup of alston,tmac,artest,scola,yao and rudy off the bench would have won the chip no doubt. I can only dream
right now Gay is better but once Shane actually sits for a while and gets healthy, he will show why he is more important
"Who has the better record" is the worst argument. Maybe I'm the only one that doesn't think "Grizzlies = winners" during their Battier era.
Grizzlies went to the playoffs for three consecutive years before they traded Battier. Since then they have been among the floor matts in the league. And i know they FAIL hard in those 3 playoff appearances, but with Battier at least they have success in the regular season and were able to compete for a playoff spot. How about now with Gay? Grizzlies werent exactly winners during their Battier era, but they certainly were winnerer than the current Gay era.
05-06 Memphis 49-33 (5th) 04-05 Memphis 45-37 (8th) 03-04 Memphis 50-32 (6th) They finished ahead of Houston each of those seasons. Then Battier is traded, their defense goes belly up and they've gone 22-60; 22-60 and are currently 10-20. I'm not saying Battier made ALL the difference, but it's completely foolish to argue that he made no difference to their overall record. The way he leads the team defense is a valuable commodity - and a guy who can do that while hitting 40% of his 3pt shots is ALWAYS going to be an integral part of any team. Not the star - but a key component to a winning team. Personally, right now I'd rather have Gay - but who knew he was going to be this good pre-draft (and the endless argument that we would've picked Thabo anyway - and I'd prefer Battier over Sefolosha!!!)
So Battier on the current Grizzlies team vaults them over the Hornets, Blazers, Mavs, Jazz, hell, ANYBODY in the West that's challenging for a playoff spot? Riiiiiiiight.
We have been through this topic time and time again. Stop feeding this pointlessly redundant thread, lets bury this and move on. GET OVER IT.
Yeah! That's as stupid as saying that putting Gay on those previous Grizzlies squads and they still would have made the playoffs Riiiiiiiiiiiight.
given the injury situation, its even harder to understand how some of you defend this trade. I was against this trade from day 1, but originally getting bonzi made it a little easier to take, but he couldn't get in shape. now artest kind of makes you forget about it, but he can't stay healthy, and then of course there's tracy who can't stay healthy, and yao is almost a given to break something at this point. you had a young potential star, even not knowing what we know now, and we gave him up for a guy who on a lot of teams isn't even a starter. the most ridiculous claims were that he could play pf and guard some of the more mobil forwards in the leaque. after his 04 olympic performance I can't believe anyone ever bought into that claim. I was through posting in these threads, but the article posted earlier this morning about dm/ra having the meeting with tracy and all the injuries on this its salt on the wound. stupid short sighted thinking at the time. this club was way more than a glue player away from champioship contender.
DOES GAY MAKE HIS TEAM MATES BETTER? Can Rudy Gay guard kobe, Lebron and more? I don't care if we passed on Gay. I do care about passing on Jordan! wheres your whining about that 20/20 hindsight. Even better Richard Jefferson? That deal was a train wreck, no pun intended.
What if Rockets did not win that meaningless game at the end of the season... We would have locked in Brandon Roy... I hate JVG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
