Have you seen Rudy play this season? Well by your statement I know you haven't. Look at his numbers....
Records: Rockets 6-1 Grizzlies 1-4 I don't know but I'd prefer to see my team win rather than see some young players put up big numbers on a very bad team. The Grizzlies should be improved but they look like a very bad team.
Well the Rockets have had 2 All Stars for 5 seasons and can't get out of round 1. I would not annoint them in November.
Correct me if I'm wrong but, weren't you the one that was laughing at us and saying Battier was overrated and he would break our hearts? Hmmm ... it seems to me he's doing a better job of breaking the opposite teams fans hearts than ours. This year, he cancelled the Lake Show and just tonight a key steal vs the Bobcats to seal ANOTHER win! "Battier for a 3, YES!" "Battier taking ANOTHER charge" "Battier with a key steal, block, rebound, etc." Memo: HELLO! He makes winning plays. He came from a winning pedigree at Duke and he has HIGH basketball IQ. Don't worry about that 1st round exit thing, with Bonzi, James and later on this season, Scola we got thing covered but, if you wish we'll have Shane send you a postcard as to what its like to go beyond the first round much less win a single playoff game of which the Grizz have NEVER done! LOL! Great call on Battier, MemphisX. H-Town loves him just fine thank you. Don't worry he'll retire a Rocket with at least a couple of championship rings.
Being on the Rockets improved Battier's previous playoff wins record from 0. Battier being on the Rockets did not result in "win now" or even past the first round.
Anyone that would still do a rudy gay for battier trade has their rocket colored glasses on. Battier was brought in to win big last year and it didn't happen. We gambled and lost. Gay has a good chance of being an all-star someday and Battier will always be a 10 5 and 3 guy. Its not like Battier is Horry who a history of winning and making clutch shots. Battier has won 3 playoff games in his career and none of them of those can be directly contributed to him. Battier is a good role player and thats it. He's not a Jason Terry, Rober Horry or even a Bonzi. Battier will never win you a playoff game by himself.
So, Battier wasn't brought in to win this year? Funny, I thought he was still under contract. And Rockets seems to have a chance to win. At least that what I hear from Rockets fans. And Rudy Gay can win a playoff game by himself? Can Rudy Gay please just help his team to win a few regular season games first? A .500 record, with Gasol, Mike Miller and a similarly level team as the one Battier used to play on would be nice.
You guys have a good team. But Gasol is getting older and slower. Darko is the biggest acquisition this offseason, and he is blue collar role player at best. You guys will be fighting for that 8th spot the whole year, and might meet us in the first round. How sweet it would be to sweep Memphis to get out the first round. You will be back watching Yao play in no time.
Their bigs: Pau Gasol - an effective scorer who doesn't play defense and can't make his teammates better by drawing double-teams. Darko - what else can this guy do other than blocking a shot once in a while? Stro - his contribution to the team starts and ends with highlight dunks.
Yeah, and the Grizz have only beaten a weak Seattle team. The dude's alright, but not that good - or at least not as good as I expected him to be. I doubt the Rockets would be in such a great shape right now if we had Gay rather than Battier.
You're missing the point. Battier compliments Yao and T-Mac better than Gay would have. Yes, Rudy is athletic and makes acrobatic plays but when the game is on the line who do you trust if Yao or T-Mac can't get the shot? Battier is the answer. Whatever we need, when we need it. He gets it done! The reason we lost in the playoffs last year was we had no answer for Boozer Loozer. We got that fixed. Problem of offensive rebounding. We got that fixed. Weak bench. We got that fixed. If athleticism alone won championships then, the Bulls should have been the champs in 85. Jordan was ridiculous vs Boston in the first round. For that matter Dominique. He never went to the finals. Doctor J, my childhood hero, never won a championship until what? had a team that played great D and had solid bench play. So in conclusion, until the Grizz can rebuild complimentary players around Rudy to make them contender-worthy, the Grizz will continue to be fart fodder for the rest of the division. Memphis may contend in 4-5 years or if they could get lucky where an injury bug plagues the following: Yao, T-Mac, Dirk, Josh Howard, Duncan, Ginobili, Tony Parker & Chris Paul either go out for significant portions of a season or are out for an entire season well ... the Grizz will continue to resemble the j*zz because they will continue to suffer from performance anxiety disorder and not get to the money round. LOL! Bottom line, the Grizz are the Baylor Bears of the NBA Southwest Division and they will continue to be cellar dwellers in this division for at least until Duncan, Yao, T-Mac, Dirk, Parker retire which will be probably 7-10 years. Memphis would be better served IMO if they went to the Eastern Conference in say the Southeast Division. They may have a fighting chance there to contend. Here though. They have NO chance!
Rudy Gay's 2006-07 player winning percentage = .115 Shane Battier's 2006-07 player winning percentage = .888 Battier was responsible for 9 of the Rockets wins last year and only one loss. Rudy Gay was responsible for 1 of Memphis's wins last year and 8 losses. Do you want to do the same thing again after this year? I'm really itching to.
You my friend, are obviously not familiar with the concept of defense. 06-07 ROX + Battier > 06-07 ROX + Gay/Swift. PERIOD. I'm glad Rudy is developing offensively, he is immensely athletic but I would still do that trade in heat beat. You are right that Battier is probably no more than a spectacular role player, and that is exactly what we need. It is exactly what we are getting. If you are implying that Rudy Gay would help the Rox win now more so than Shane, then you sir, are most emphatically wrong.
I'm not completely sold on Gay. The guy seems like he's improving though which is a great sign for him. He can score, but he doesn't rebound, play very good D (although can block), and doesn't have good ball control (.5 assist/TO which is just a little worse than last year). Very surprising for a 6'9" guy with his athleticism. Very one dimensional so far.
I really like the young talent that Memphis has in Gay, Kinsey, Conley, Jacobsen, and Warrick. It reminds me of where the Bulls were 3 or 4 years ago. If I were the GM I would trade off Gasol and Miller for high draft picks and build for the future. As Duncan, Nowitzski, Yao, T-Mac et al begin to age the Grizzlies have an opportunity to become the next dominant team in the division. A starting point would be to find a real starting center.
assist to turnover ratio is an irrelevant stat for anyone but a pg. rebounds could be up a bit but the guy scores at a 50% clip and is decent so far from three range. I wouldn't worry about the assist/to ratio, just the fact he doesn't get very many assists, but right now he is the finisher on that that team.
Yeah, his dribble isn't that terrific and efficient - in fact, it's awkward. He doesn't maximize his big frame. Look at large guys who can dribble, Tracy Mcgrady, for example, and Rudy looks like he's taking baby steps when he's dribbling. I blame it on his bulk. Compare his body to, again, Mac's or Al Harrington, and Rudy looks like a banging PF than a sleek SF. I'd compare his movement the most to LeBron's (who's also stocky), except his court vision isn't anywhere like Bron's (which allows Bron to be effective with his massive bulk). The offense stops when he gets the ball... but Memphis, as a whole, doesn't have a terrific passing game. He's not that bad; and he still has a lot of upside. But, hell, he's not as good as I expected him to be. The board was absolutely downed when Gay was traded. I remember there being a thread, "What if Gay is the next Lebron?"; which, if given serious thought was highly unlikely, just goes to show how high this BBS' expectations of him were.
Yeah it probably would've been better if I said this instead of using a/to, but his ball handling has a bit to be desired and he's not a good passer so far. Again, he's definitely improved his scoring from last year, but does very little else.
