Rudy Gay: Staying with Losing Team "Is Important to Me"

He's having fun padding his stats, that or he's trying to prove that he wants to be the future of the Grizzlies organization.

I think Rudy Gay is a great player, but I think he needs to work on getting a higher IQ. He clearly has all the athletic ability he needs, his skills are excellent as well, but I think he should work on his decision making process.

 

Too bad he's already the 3rd best player on that squad(after Mayo and Gasol). He's like a poor man's version of Andre Iguadala right now, and AI isn't even a franchise player!

 

Behind Gasol? That's going too far. Rudy Gay is a good player, but similar to Aaron Brooks he is pretty much half brain dead.

From what I've heard on other sites, people consider him the most overrated player on that team. Not in the league, just on that team.

I like Rudy Gay, but......We already have enough brain dead players.

 

Yet Rudy Gay supposedly feels like he can be a franchise player. The Grizzlies would be crazy to extend him this summer and looking at their recent history, ain't no way it happens.

 

What is wrong with a guy wanting to be loyal?

 

Yep, I think he wants to take the same road Kevin Garnett went through when he was a T'Wolve.

They were always losing, and then KG elevated them into a playoff contender and eventually possible championship contenders. I believe Rudy wants to do the same thing, I am not sure if he will be able to. But making an assumption I think that's what Rudy is aiming at.

 

So all players should just leave the teams that drafted them (or traded for them in this case) to go chase rings?

 

Certain people like the original poster look for anything to try and make Rudy Gay look bad (while indirectly trying to make Battier look good) in order to try and demonstrate what a "great" trade this was for the Rockets.

 

Yes, he's behind Gasol in at this point of time. Gasol is pretty under rated IMHO. He's much better than Brook Lopez, and that's dude has the Nets drooling all over him. More importantly, Gasol is bonafide C in a league where C's are hard to come by, while Gay is a dime a dozen sf.

Gay is nice but at this point in time can he do anything that Von Wafer can't? He's way more athletic than Wafer, but at the same time his stroke is worse than Wafer's as well. Both of them don't play defense, and both of them don't have a high bball IQ. Wafer though is always aggressive, while Gay fades from time to time. I also think Gay is one of the softest up and comers in the league, he always contorts his body to avoid contact when driving it in or pulling up, usually resulting in the missed layup/shot.

The fact that a guy we just picked up off summer league is comparable to Gay at all is an indication of his value lol.

Still the fact that Gay is willing to stay in Memphis shows his loyalty to the organization. It'll be interesting to see how much Memphis thinks he is worth.

 

How many lotto picks have they gotten? The only pick I think they wasted was on conley:

*Rudy Gay (obtained for Shane Battier)
*Mike Conley Junior-3rd pick of Durant's draft
*OJ Mayo-This year's 2nd best rookie (although it looks like he has hit the wall lately)

2 out of 3's not bad at all IMHO. At least compare it to McFale's twolves. I can only imaging what's going on in Mchale's mind when he sees Mayo and Roy while all he has is Kevin Love, Randy Foye and Sebastian Telfair

 

Just my 2 cents, but I think Gay's "loyalty" to Memphis may have more to do with money than anything else. Like most players, he's smart enough to say the right things during contract years. Articles have been written about how the economy is going to ruin the summer of 2010 for free agents and some of the big names are being advised by their agents to sign extensions this coming summer to avoid the worst of the fallout.

 

Gay is MUCH better than Wafer at this point in time.

Can Wafer hit contested jumpshots time after time again? Something Gay when he gets hot can do.

If you replace Wafer with Gay, with Gay coming off the bench for us he'd average at least 15 points(easily) and as far as defense, with Yao, Battier, and Artest on this team you have no choice but to play average defense.

Also some players just take longer to adapt and find their game into the NBA...but if you say either Rudy Gay or Von Wafer, i'm taking Rudy 10x outta 10 up until this point.

Also Wafer plays on the better team, good teams sometimes make role players look better than they really are.

 

Well obviously Gay is better than Wafer, but MUCH better? I don't know about that. You say that Gay has the ability to hit contested shot after contested shot when he gets hot, but his fg percentage doesn't even reach 45%, the times he gets "hot" is probably few and far between. His 3 pt percentage is atrocious compared to Wafer, and 31% from 3 is just embarrasing for someone who likes to chuck it like Gay does.

And your point about good teams making role players look good is wrong. Its the other way around. Crap teams make average players look good, because they can afford to let the player play through his mistakes, and give him the shot opportunities and play time he needs to improve his game. Gay scores 18.9 pts in 37 minutes of play. Wafer scores 9.7 pts in 19 mins of play. Both of them average nearly the same amount of points per 40 mins. Like I said, exactly how good is Gay when someone you pick up of summer league like Von Wafer give more or less the same production but is hella cheaper than him?

 

See on a bad team, Gay isn't getting good shots. Neither is Mayo, yeah Gay likes to chuck it up there but oh well, he plays for a bad team might as well chuck it up there. Pretty much what Mayo does also but Gay can drive and finish as well, that should be noted.

As far as good teams making role players look better...Think about all those role players on the Spurs, Lakers, Cavs, and Celts...Mikki Moore looked like trash on the Kings, Ariza was pretty much trash on the Magic, Mason, Bonner, the list goes on and on and the Rockets are no exception really. They make role players look better than they really are.

What is easier for a guy like Wafer to do?

"We want you to come off the bench and give us about 10 points."
or
"We want you to lead our franchise, you're one of our key guys we are building a team around."

Obviously Rudy Gay's job is much tougher than what Wafer does for us, if Wafer is having a bad game we just take him out and play Barry/Artest/Battier more.

Mainly Gay has motivation issues I feel, if he was coming off the bench like Wafer is now he'd be a outstanding player for us.

 

What else is he suppose to say? This is said a lot when people talk about their contract situations.

 

Also remember Kyle Lowry was a role player on the Grizzlies and he didn't look so good, but when he goes to a better team almost instantly he looks better.

On bad teams Role players are asked to do more than they can, on good teams with better coaches. They get better coaching and they are asked only what they can do.

These guys can only do one or two things well, on bad teams they are asked to do more than they really can. On good teams they can focus on their strentghs and the team can still succeed because they have other players to hide their weakness.

Wafer for example isn't a good defender...yet we have Artest and Battier and Yao. This at times hides his weakness on the court and allows him to do his thing.

Hayes weakness is obviously on offense. Yet we have Yao,Landry, Scola to hide this weakness.

Lowry isn't a good shooter...but we have guys that can make up for it.

With the Grizzlies Lowry was exposed and his weaknesses are clear as day. Players always look better with more talent on the floor.

 

rudy gay: "i want the money now. i don't care about winning. and once i get my extension i'm satisfied with my nba career and will stop working hard to get better."

 

ha! sounds like someone we all know.....