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

The jury is still out. Battier is a solid contributor and one of our only 3 point shooters. He was not the difference maker to get us to the next round and he is aging.

Gay may or may not turn out to be a solid contributor. He had nights that he looked great and others where he totally disappeared. This was the knock on him before the draft and why he was available at 8. We do need a creator behind McGrady, buy I am unconvinced that Gay is ready for that role.

If I was to predict, I believe Gay will never fulfill his potential. If we could somehow get Battier to the bench, he could very well be a valuable role player. So I believe the trade was ok, not great, but not a disaster either.

 

PGab,

What is a scarecrow is all the people who think that this is even a real argument.

We didn't like Rudy Gay, were not going to draft him, so they took GAY for Memphis...that is who they wanted.....

So the argument is moot, and tired, and a waste of server space......

Gay is with Memphis, never was with Houston, never was going to be with Houston, and never will be with Houston....so what is the point?

Now, if you want to talk about trading Battier to Portland for Outlaw etc....or that Battier is overated or underated, that is a real argument...

But Rudy Gay.....is NOT a Houston Rocket.

so.....in light of that.

And that AWESOME Rudy Gay man lead his team to a grand total of what 22 wins....yeah, that is a difference maker right there baby !



DD

 

this is the stupidest argument btw. that makes the rockets look even dumber, not only did they pass on a young stud who already scores twenty and is still only 21, they never considered keeping him. nice argument

 

A "Young Stud" who scores 20 on a 22 win team.

Which would you rather watch.. a team that wins 55 games or a team that wins 22 and has a "young stud"

 

because, clearly, a team with yao, tmac would only win 22 games, because clearly, the onus is on the 22 year old to now lead an nba team to the playoffs. how many games did tmac win in orlando his last season. he sucks

congratulations, you found a dumber argument

 

A similar, but better argument is that from 2005-06 to 2006-07, the Grizzlies remained essentially unchanged except that they replaced Shane Battier with Rudy Gay and Stromile Swift. They went from 49 wins to 20 wins. There were other factors, Pau missed 11 more games, and Miller missed 4 more, but he biggest change was Battier. Replacing Battier with Gay and Swift turned a decent team into a horrible one.

 

and congratulations to you too, because you completely missed the point.

You can't honestly think he would be scoring 20 points a game on a team with Yao and Tmac.

So you proved that I am more logical with my "dumber argument"

 

battier never scored that much in memphis, so yes, I can reasonably assume that gay would score twenty using the one for one logic of winning here winning there

i'm only using your logic

 

look i'm bowing out, but if you have to go to the "look how many games memphis won" card while evaluating a 21 year old second year player, you've lost the argument

this subject has been explored enough

 

You are just being testy cause you know you are wrong.

Battier didn't score a bunch in Memphis because he wasn't dominating the ball... he had Pau and playing in a ten man rotation.

Gay scores a bunch in Memphis because he does dominate the ball.

Obviously neither one will dominate the ball on a team with Yao and McGrady.

 

but he's responsible for all the wins without dominating the ball, who's his coach, Yoda?

edit: yes I'm being testy, because the "wins" argument is ridiculous

 

Maybe we wouldn't have won 55 games with Gay but I'm quite sure we would have made it to the playoffs in the presence of Yao,Tracy,Scola,and Landry even with the injuries to Yao and Tracy.If Tracy goes down,Battier/Head won't be able to carry the load on offense even if Yao and Scola/Landry are fully fit.

 

Actually, I love the wins argument from DaDakota, in one thread he's arguing that Ginobli is better than Melo because of championships, yet billups (a finals mvp) isn't close to brandon roy in another thread, yet battier is so valuable because he's been on some teams exiting in the first round.

then there's jj and boki

 

Uh, no...

 

Having followed Rudy Gay's career while he was at UConn, I was somewhat disappointed in the Rudy Gay (and Swift) for Battier trade at the time. In my honest opinion, Gay had the skill set to be a star in the league. However, I do understand why the Rockets pulled the trigger on that trade. The trade was supposed to pay immediate dividends on a team with a "win-now" mentality. Gay and Battier are certainly different players as one possesses far greater offensive prowess while the other is a known as a defensive stalwart. Looking back, I still would take Rudy over Shane any day of the week. While every team should have a "glue guy" like Shane, players with "star potential" (i.e Rudy Gay) don't come very often. Also, having a team that has undergone injury woes the last few years (T-Mac and Yao), Rudy Gay would essentially be our "insurance policy", while our future (in case the T-Mac and Yao experiment doesn't work out) is still in good hands.


P.S- People tend to forget that Swift was involved in that deal and was a #2 pick.

 

I agree with you that the Rockets shouldn't have passed up on Gay but I don't have any regrets about Swift not being on the team.

 

Who cares?

This is dead and buried, so what if the trade happened.

The management at the time did not like Rudy Gay, get over it.

SHEESH !!!

Imagine how many teams passed on Kobe, or Amare or....etc..etc..etc...

Man...

DD

 

To all the battier fans, what is the rox record without tracy? What is his stats as far as wins are concerned then. When it was yao and scrubs, did battier put up 20 during the 19-50 record?

DD- u disappoint me. Go and look at the draft for the past 10-12 yrs www.databasebasketball.com and check the players taken at 8/9 spot. U could have a really good squad from that position alone.

I'm not sure Gay would score 20 per, but he would go 6-13 with 3-4 ft and get that night in night out. On the nights Yao or Tracy struggles, u have a guy that can get that 20 or 25.