Does the Battier/Gay trade still bother/frustrate/infuriate you to this day?

O.K., you have covered the good stuff, now let's see how you do on the "rest of the story." You are going to need a bigger thread.

 

But no one is perfect, the Spurs....gave up Barbosa, and Scola etc......and signed Bonner...and Jackie Butler....

So, they all have mistakes.....they used Scola to jettison Butlers contract, just like we used Gay to Jettision Swifts bad deal.

DD

 

I have heard this many times but my question is:

If we had Rudy Gay, T-mac doesn't have to carry too much of the offense and he can play more defense... would that be better than T-mac having to save energy on defense?

 

But when Gay was drafted no one knew what he would become, and there were serious questions about his work ethic and dedication and competitive fire......

Hindsight is 20/20.......the trade happened, there was some serious logic behind it....

And it didn't work out in our favor....oh well.

Don't forget that the Rockets were still reeling with the Eddie Griffin situation, and probably had not recovered from that gaffe, and decided to take the sure thing rather than the unknown....a perfectly sensible thing to do.


DD

 

its more mind boggling today than it is disappointing. look, everyone understands why they did the deal, I hate when these threads turn into battier bashing, that's not the purpose. the pro-trade crowd however is too quick to defend this trade as (we didn't know what gay was). you can say that about any given draft pick in history excluding some no brainers like olajuwon, shaq, jordan, duncan. everyone else is taking a chance. just not a very good defense of the trade

 

Richard Jefferson.

 

ROFLMAO......ugh.

 

It was a bad trade then and it's a bad trade now.

 

Why is it not a good defense? If Gay turned out to be a bust, people would not be whining about the trade, wouldn't they? But could you know for sure at the time of the trade?

Every trade involving draft picks, especially lottery picks, is a gamble. The point is not whether he turns out good or not, the point is whether the risk-potential was correctly evaluated.

Gay had high potential but also high risk. Battier had low risk but not very high potential. It's like buying stock. You choose your risk level according to your needs at that time. You don't buy high risk when you are near retirement. The Rockets thought they were near championship. Battier was the "blue chip" that was meant to solidify the run. I think they under-anticipated the injuries that happened to Yao and McGrady.

 

question answered

you get in the lottery, you take a chance, especially on a guy who showed flashes to be so much more than what battier could have been.

 

Do you think the Spurs think this way? Or the Pistons? No, I don't think they do.

It all depends on your GM and owner. Not all teams take the high risk, high reward route.

You can't say one is right and the other is wrong. It's just two different philosophies.

 

Would you agree that a young lottery team that is "rebuilding" would be more inclined to take a chance on a "high-risk, high-reward" type player like Rudy Gay, compared to an experienced team that wants to "win now"?

I think the Rockets decided that they were close to being a title contender, and a player like Shane Battier would be a perfect addition to a JVG-coached team and would put them in the elite class. Injuries to T-Mac and Yao the last couple seasons may have significantly impacted our regular season win totals, which consequentially put us in the spot of having to face a strong playoff opponent in the first round both years. If not for that, the Battier acquisition might have looked really good.

 

they weren't in the lottery, except for the pistons who took darko on guess what? potential

 

The Spurs have had much of a chance to take a high risk pick in a while now. What happens when you pick late. Really, anything you get in the late 1st round is gravy. I guess Splitter could be one, given his contract status, and they lost that gamble.


As for Pistons... there's that Darko guy... but they actually corrected their mistake. Traded him to Orlando for a pick... guess who that turned out to be?

 

Battier and Miller were matched up. Gay guarded McGrady for most of the game, and he went off for 41 points on 28 shots.

The game where they were matched up all night: http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200712280MEM.html

Battier scored 18 points on 9 shots and added 7 rebounds, an assist, two steals, and a block.

Gay scored 8 points on 13 shots, and grabbed two rebounds.

The other two games weren't so hot either.

I was at this one: http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200802290HOU.html, when Rudy Gay made Houston long for him with his 5-for-16, 11/5 night, while holding Battier to a miserable .625 FG%.

 

That is why the Rockets front office and scouting personnel get paid the BIG BUCKS!! To know everything about a player and to have a CLUE of how that player is to be projected. Once again, I think the Rockets blew it. Remember, Rashard Lewis being passed up 3 times, and yes the Eddie Griffin situation. Look at their past 5 drafts starting with Yao. There has been way more misses than hits.

 

Well obviously you are correct in that the Rockets mgmt weren't expecting the injuries to Yao and McGrady, but seriously, anyone who follows this Rockets team for sometime should understand how injury prone Yao and McGrady are. So for them to be surprised that happened is sorta dumb, IMO. I think it was more like wishful thinking that both of them would make it through the season without any injuries (mainly because they knew they couldn't get anything worth of any value for them in a trade).

But back to this trade - don't underestimate how much of a role Gumby had in this. It was well-known that he didn't like to play rookies and young guys and he always had a stiffy for Battier, so I would venture that he really helped to pull the strings in making this deal work. And for the record, I do think that Rudy Gay would have struggled immensely in Gumby's offensive system but then almost any player with offensive skills would since that system is about as efficient offensively as using a Lincoln Navigator to drive around the country in.

But the one thing that all the pro-Battier trade people never mention is that Rudy Gay came out of a system in UConn that has a proven track record of successful NBA players - guys like Ray Allen, Rip Hamilton, Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, Donyell Marshall, Clifford Robinson, and Caron Butler just to name a few. Yes, Rudy Gay had only played one season at UConn but this was a guy that had been ranked and rated by many draft publications as the possible #1 pick and coming from a basketball factory like UConn should have sealed the deal. Sealed the deal that when he fell into our laps that he should have been taken and KEPT.

For the Rockets to seriously think that their team was in contention of winning a championship when the franchise hasn't gotten out of the first round since '97 just showed how delusional they were (especially considering they were basing this off 2 injury-prone superstars). I can't help but wonder if Adelman had been coach back then if the team had kept Rudy after all. Guess we will never know.

 

I agree 100% Rudy Gay could have at least been the third option we've been looking for..EVER if management thought otherwise something is very wrong and our chance of winning a championship are as slim as Yao and T-Mac playing all 82 games next season.