Rudy Gay's about to show the world he's on Durant's level

they lost to utah in 07 with home court advantage with battier yao and mcgrady.

trade failure

rudy gay looked liked mcgrady coming out of college

he's kind of a head case with extreme potential like tmac however tmac did live up to his potential in orlando and his first year. gay hasn't.

that being said trade failre

2007 called, they want their thread back

edit: first year in houston

 

I'll be rooting for him to play like Durant tonight for once. I think tonight is the 1st time he'll be playing on TNT

 

Battier hit 45% from the field and 44% from 3 in that Utah series, averaging 10.3ppg.

Gay had nearly an identical scoring average in 06-07 (10.8), but only shot 42% from the field and 36% from 3. I don't know what you expected him to do in that playoff series, but the likely offensive production would have been no better than what Battier gave you, and the defense would have been a big drop off.

If you want to blame anyone for that loss in 2007, blame Rafer (33%), Luther (31%), or Juwan (40%), none of whom could buy a shot. They combined for 20 points on 21 shots a game, while Battier gave you 10 points on 7 shots per.

I'd much rather have Gay, now, but Battier was the superior player (and better compliment to Yao/McGrady) that season. The trade was a failure in hindsight but it has to be viewed in the context of the need for a complimentary piece to what we thought were 2 franchise-type players.

 

i don't know where those numbers come from, but let's take them at face value. rudy gay has won 7 games in 7 tries in his career. league average on game-winning type shots is about 30%, so an average player would only hit 2.1, or 2 if we're rounding off. so gay's unique talent for hitting game-winners has been worth about 5 wins over 5 or so seasons, 1 win a year.

now what if we took gay's 18 scoring possessions he uses at a 51 TS% and upped them to something solid for a perimeter player like 55 TS%. that would result in a difference of 1.44 points per game for his team (18*1.1-18*1.02), with no extra possessions needed (we'll ignore offensive rebounding for a second). those 1.44 points per game of extra scoring differential would be worth about 3.9 wins (1.44 * 2.7 wins/point) over the course of a season. so rudy gay will give you an extra win every year thanks to his last second heroics. but what he does over the other 47 minutes, 36 seconds of the game has an even more profound effect. it would be much better for his team if he used his 18 possessions at an elite level than if he used the last possession in a little over 1 game a year at a super-elite level.

 

Did a google search on "NBA game winning shots percentage" and this old article came out:

http://82games.com/gamewinningshots.htm

This article, using data up to 2/4/2009 defines game winning shot as follows:


Game Winning Shot Opportunity = 24 seconds or less left in the game, team with the ball is either tied or down by 1 to 2 points.

Seems like a fair enough definition to me.

As of 2/4/2009, Rudy Gay was 5 for 14 on game winning shots and 3/4 in FTs. So, apparently he has failed his team during his career in such situations and there are some games which Kwame did not watch.

Now, of course maybe Kwame's definition of the situation is different-- and only shots taken with, say, 3 second or less left in a game, count in his sample, but it would seem unlikely for any person, including Rudy Gay and Kevin Durant, to have had magical power with 3 second left that he didn't have with 4, 5, 10 or 20 seconds left.

 

My feeling on the Battier trade is that it would have been viewed as just fine in hindsight if Tracy and Yao had remained healthy. Especially with the eventual acquisition of Artest.

Because of the circumstances, the trade was obviously a failure and we would certainly be better off with Gay now. However, I don't think the trade, when taken in context, was a bad deal. It was okay.

Sometimes the right move doesn't work out. The results don't then make it the wrong move. For a basketball analogy, if you set up a play for Kobe at the end of the game, he gets a good look, but the potential game-winning shot rims out, was it a bad play? Of course not. Sometimes the right moves don't work out and conversely sometimes you can make a bad decision and get lucky.

One can still argue that even in that context the Battier & Stro for Gay trade was the wrong one (I wasn't anywhere thrilled with it at the time), but looking back and considering all the implications, it was defensible move.

 

T-Mac played damn well for much more than just his first year in Houston. Even when he was unhealthy and shooting poorly, he was still a HUGE, positive difference maker for our team for years.

And no, the Battier trade was a good one. Gay isn't that great.

OP's implicit claim that he's like Durant is right, though... except he's worse in every single possible way.

 

you missed the point as well as everyone else. rudy gay was a potential mcgrady replacement. i called this, mcgrady health was always suspect. you had a potential replacement and a guy who is better than battier.

no telling what gay could have scored in the playoffs next to yao and mcgrady. his team sucked so bad they traded gasol and moved on

everyone else should also on this topic. i would rather have kevin martin, but that move was eight chess plays ago. no telling what moves would happen if you had gay.

on the actual topic, i think gay's potential is closer to vince carter's.

 

Is or was? It would be pretty unprecedented for guy to make that kind of jump at this point in his career, after showing very little obvious improvement over his 4 last seasons.

 

i guess "was". dude has that type of game, leaping ability included

 

No doubt he's the second best athlete at the position behind LeBron.

 

OUCH... OWNAGE!

 

I initially asked you how many game-winning shots did Rudy have to hit for you to consider him clutch and you said more than one. It was implied that we were talking about his NBA career. You wanted more than one and I've given you six examples of him hitting buzzer beaters...5 of which were game-winners. Now you're changing your argument to something else.

Rudy Gay and Kevin Durant are on the same level when it comes to game winning shots according to this data. Thus, according to 82games.com, Rudy Gay has been on Kevin Durant's level in this category for a while now. How fitting, especially considering the title of this thread. Moreover, Gay just has an uncanny ability to hit buzzer beaters as well. I wish the Rockets had somebody on Gay and Durant's level you could draw up a play for and have him hit a shot with either a few seconds to no time left on the clock to win the game against elite defenders.

Hey Nook, I finished watching the Pacers play the Bulls from last night and all I could think about when I saw Danny Granger shooting the ball and leading his team in scoring and helping to lead his team to victory at Chicago was what a ball-hogging, inefficient Ricky Davis/Ron Mercer chucker type player he was.

Let me try and contact Luc Richard Mbah a Moute's and Trevor Ariza's agents and tell them about your amazing theory that if their clients only shot the ball some more that they would be putting up close to 20 points per night like Gay and Granger as well.

 

...no I'm asking you what your argument is. #? %? Something else? Six examples is enough. OK, well let me think on it for a second. Vernon Maxwell had one against the spurs in 1993 to run the rockets record to 22-1 or whatever it was, one where he was falling out of bounds against G-State that year too..that's actually more than Gay averages in a year (<2). I guess he's more clutchgamewinningness also. Stats are fun.

You may want to check your verb tense, then re-read the data set.

 

Judging by this data set, Mike James was also pretty much on Gay and Durant's level.

 

Don't forget Flip Murray, 4-4 in GW shots. Dude is icewater. And Damon "DA CLOSER" Jones. 6/12.

 

You're the one that decided to provide us with this data.

 

It's quite annoying that every time I get on clutchfans there's still so many ppl who're upset at the battier/gay trade, which occured prior to the start of the 06/07 season. The 06/07 season.

Cmon guys, there's a reason that we made the trade at the time and I would live with the Rockets FO if they somehow went back in time and made that same trade because a team with a core of Yao/McGrady/Battier is a championship-caliber team (in '07).

Quit crying over spilled milk.

 

No it's not, it was you who did. We put it in context for you. You owe us a thank you/and or an explanation of what your argument is re: clutchnessitude and what it is and why we should read it to show that Gay has it.

 

they lost in the first round with home court. are you delusional