Randolph will get max dollars, I just don't think its a good investment despite his monster stats. How many Max Level players are leading their teams to the 8th spot with that level talent around them?
They could have added new pieces over the next three years if they had gone the other direction too, so I am not sure how that is an argument in Battier's favor. A "young talent" would have been more of an enticing picece for trades to aquire those other pieces. A lottery pick is worth more than a role player which could have been gotten in other ways. The prorblem with Battier aquisition was the price that was paid to aquire him. There were plenty of folks on this board who were against the trade the day it happened, and mostly for reasons that came out to be true. It is a hindsight for you, but it wasnt hindsight for them. Considering Battier did not do anything, I dont see how Gay could have done any worse in that series. Gay would have probably been terrible but considering he would have beeen a rookie in his first playoff series, it would have been much easier to justify his struggles compared to a player who was brought in to produce immediately.
Memphis. A future championship team. So do I have to like slap you awake from dreamland or something? I'm sorry, when it comes down to it, it's Memphis. I'm not taking them seriously until I see them in the conference finals or something, because they have a long history of doing stupid junk and being r****ded. Sure, they'll probably make the playoffs and get knocked out in the first round or something, but the mere idea that Memphis could be a championship team is from my perspective just laughable and OJ Mayo having more potential than Kobe insulting.
U fail to mention he scored 22 in 1 game and avg 7 for the rest. Also what good is 45% when u shoot 4 times a game?
They won't be there in their primes. Gay is in the final year of his rookie contract. Gasol is a FA in 2011. Mayo fortunately for them will be on the cheap, so they might be able to keep 2 of Gay/Gasol/Randolph, but who knows. LBJ > those 4 stars. LBJ carried a team to finals as a 23 year old. Randolph is in his prime, Gay is 23, Gasol is 25, and Mayo is 22 and they are fighting for the 8th playoff spot.
I just deal with the facts. It's not my fault that people like you who idolize Battier allow your hero worship to get in the way of the reality of the situation, but then again, in your own words, you are a hater. He sealed the win last night aganist the Lakers with his 3 with less than 30 seconds left in the game. Wouldn't you want Rudy Gay to being this sort of stuff for the Houston Rockets? <object width="480" height="365"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x3t6b2"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x3t6b2" width="480" height="365" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed></object><br /><b><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3t6b2_rudy-gay-hits-the-gamewinning-3poin_sport">Rudy Gay hits the game-winning 3-pointer as time expires to</a></b><br /><i>Uploaded by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/Grdgez">Grdgez</a>. - <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/us/channel/sport">Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.</a></i> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/poyS9OMAlaE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/poyS9OMAlaE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qA3oBD16N9E&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qA3oBD16N9E&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
^^^ In the videos posted above by Kwame you will notice one thing that the Rockets could have used (besides his offense) BACK THEN with Yao/Tracy and RIGHT NOW with the current team. Rudy Gay's ability to get seperation from his defender and create shots.
Yes, but then again, maybe we would lose more games even though Gay is the better player now. We don't know what it would be like to have Gay on this team. There's also the looming FA market which is going to see numerous teams with lots of cap space who aren't going to get LBJ/Wade/Bosh and are going to start looking towards Rudy Gay. And I wouldn't pay him the money he wants.
the Rockets absolutely could have used the current Rudy Gay back then. The thing is, he didn't exist. He was a ballhog, low efficiency, turnover-prone guy that didn't put forth consistent effort back then. Not the guy you want manning the wing on a team you believe is a contender. I mean, that was the knock coming out of school (the effort), and he really didn't dispell it until this year. Even people that watched every game of their's last season are surprised by his turnaround this season.
Was it? http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=2384444&postcount=1217 And ... http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=2534941&postcount=42
Well I think your simply just speculating whether they'll remain grizzlies when they hit their prime or not. To be honest, I am just speculating too, but I think there is a MUCH higher chance that they'll be there than not. Memphis has shown a strong commitment to keep rudy gay in thier plans and offered him a massive contract but he did not accept yet. its without doubt he'll be resigned this offseason seeing how much success they are having. If they offered him 12+ Million a year on a season which they got one of the worst records in the nba they'll surely offer him a even better contract now that they are making the playoffs. at the end of the day. yeah, who knows, but it seems far more logical that they won't break off a young extremely talented playoff team back to lotterylanda again when they were there for the better part of the last 3 years. I don't think money should be an issue. compare the grizzlies to the thunder, they are pretty damn similar no? if everyones going nuts about how good the thunder will be then the grizzlies wont be much worse. just wait for the grizzlies to mature. they'll be a force to be reckoned with. and give me a team over a superstar anyday
Of course you're forgetting a huge part of the deal was getting rid of Swift's horrible contract, so we would have some room to add other players who could actually help us win. Maybe they could have found a better deal with that included, but that's pure speculation. At the time the Rockets were operating under the assumption that they had had a 3-4 year window where they could build a contender around a core of Yao and McGrady. When you're in that mode you typically choose veteran role players to fill out the roster. You do this because you cannot afford another superstar. I don't see how drafting a raw lottery pick and waiting 2-3 years for him to develop helps them maximize their goal of winning a championship in that 3-4 year window. And what reasons would those be? There's only one valid reason I can think of, and that is you just simply did not believe that a team built around Yao and Tracy could win a championship. I don't seem to remember that many people calling for Yao and Tracy to be broken up at the time, but maybe I just forget. And I don't know how anything can be proven true at all with all of the injures that accumulated over that time period. Bottom line is that we'll never know.
I'm not trying to own him. His opinion on Battier obviously changed. But at the time there was a logic to what the Rockets were doing. And, as he noted, subsequent acquisitions on the offseason were needed to round out the team. People overlook the Bonzi Wells and Kirk Snyder signings because they ended up being busts, but those were talented wings that fulfilled a need for the team. People were rightly hopeful that the Rockets could be a contender that year. If Yao didn't miss a huge chunk of the season and if Wells/Snyder provided the expected contributions, the Rockets (1) could have had a better seeding, and (2) could have been better equipped in the playoffs. You need a bit of luck to win in this league, and the Rockets haven't had much of it.
What are talking about? Rudy Gay is a free agent this season. He's still a "legitimate chance at the post Mcgrady plan". Are you willing to pay him the most amount of money he's gonna earn? Hell no! He's not worth what Ai si making, I'd rather have AI with Dalembert over paying Gay a comparable amount of cash. The fact is, although it seems good to say trading Gay was a mistake, getting Battier for him netted us a couple more wins than had we just kept Gay and waited for him to develop. NOW that Gay is better than Battier, and he could be had for megabucks, the general consensus is that he'll never even reach 2nd tier stars like AI, much less superstars like LBJ and Durant. There was no point to getting him then (when we were in win now mode), and there's certainly no point to getting him now.
Exactly what I'm talking about. The expectations for that Rockets roster after Wells and Snyder were added to the team have been erased from the Clutchfans collective memories. Too many times I see people post "How can we have gotten Battier when we needed a scorer?" apparently oblivious to our MLE signing.
