Should've never traded Rudy Gay. Morey never would've never made that trade.

all u rudy haters stop talking about "NO-D NO-D NO-DEFENSEEEE!!!"
that is stupid argument okay??? jus listen to me!!

who the hell wants to play defense on that ****ty dysfunctional GRIZZLIES!!! team full of black holes and long range chuckers???? oj mayo?? zach randolph??? damon stoudamire??? are any of those guys ever gonna play defense??? do they understand that defense is still a part of basketball in the grizzlies??? does owner michael heisley even know what a charge is? oh so I see their awesome defensive minded lockdown hard-disciplined coach lionel hollins a.k.a. jeff van gundyadvanced newage maximus is gonna emphasis defensive lockdown schemes and make rudy gay and oj mayo fully lockdown ray allen and paul pierce with their complex traps and contraptions!!!!! whoa!! man!!! no stats can be shown!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they weren't drafted to score??? no??? they signed quintin ross so q-Ross08 can pour in 30 points a game while rudy gay and zach randolph plays the ultimate-no-star role of dirk and lebron stoppers?????!!!! so their upside in their mad hops and super-elite athletism is to be honed and altered into battier v32.4????? dayum..sterns got the wrong guy......why the hell is he even marketing kobe and lebron?? we need this ultimate ambassador to be marketed worldwide with his forcing to the 30 percent shooting zone and hand int he face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

damn man so I see rudy gay being a second year player was expect to carry their grizzlies teams full of greg buckners and hakim warricks to the championship??? so their record from a 80 win team to a 2 win team is only caused by the rise and fall of this so called savior whos name is shane battier??? eh????? so gasol was no part of that 80 win team I think???@#@#@#@ man rudy rudy why u so prudey why dont u just do it all and be better than the sum of yao and tmac while u just carry that memphis chris wallace team into the realms of postseason mega success while u get 4 defenders flying at u from all directions while marco jaric is spotted up on the half court line ready to shoot his open layup once rudy is gangbanged by garnett perkins and pierce plus rondo... hey flying zooming to the super tmac of memphis mike miller who flys down the line for the super slamdunk!!! no kobe or tmac needed to create open looks for rudy at all!!! who needs yao man!!! all he gonna do is clog up the lane andnot give me open 3 point shots and take away from my 6 rebounds a game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHOA BRO MY CUZZY BTRO BRO I GOTTA TELL U WHO NEEDS A YAO MING BEHIND U WHEN U HAVE THE ALMIGHTY TOWER OF DEFENSE OF HASHEEM THABEET!!! U KNOW I DUN GET NO POSTED UP BY KOBE AGAIN AND AGAIN EVERY QUARTER COS U KNOW ABOUT THIS YAO MING INFLUENCE IN THE POST THAT I RELY ON IN MY MIND?? WHO CARES ABOUT TEAM DEFENSE!!! PEJA STOJAKOVIC IS ELITE DEFENDER I SAY!!! WHO CARES ABUOT LATERAL MOVEMENT WHEN I GOT THIS HIGH 8 FOOT YAO MING IN MY MIND BEHIND ME AND HES INVISIBLE TOO!!!

man I also gotta say our team rotations are topnotch!!! I mean just cos I dun read nba.com/hotspots from my laptop dun mean I cant force lebron into a losinghandles messy dribbling lost balls into the sideline fadeaway 40 foot 3 pointer for the win!!! woohoo!!! kobe he post me up no??? so my friend luis scola comes to double help me cos I dun hav yao ming ya digg??? K.BRYANT, kobe sushi, u know, is such aa big noob, he dun know wat to do when my friend luis scola of argentina comes to double kobeee with shane in the low post...so he only kick on to ron artest top of key....so. yeah. man I wish I had a luis scola coming to help me double kobe on the low post with the scores tied.....so yea I did a great job I must say with 6 blocks once a yaer!!!!!! whoohooO!!!! plus I ony just schooled lebron with my drive layup over lebron setting up my colleague oj mayo with teh dagger 3!!!!!! plus I suck anyways cos lebron tried to hit fadeaway 3 pointer over me in OT!!! what??? he mad??? man go to michale beasley detention centre please!!!!!!!



this shane battier being ultimate invisible superstar lebron 2.0 on defensive end is lyk saying...do ghosts haunt ur house at night?? does big macs mean big cancers??? oh oh I got one!!!!!! man global warming????!!!!! that kinda thing exists??? how do we know??? why we gotta argue about the blindingly obvious that global warming!!! it exists!!! its happening!!! oh no wait!!! wat??? wat is this thing calle3d global warming??? its cool as here in northern masssssachuusits man!!!! global temperatures has only decreased a bit in the last 10 years!!! ok??? so no global warming. nah. its true. oh wait. wea da evidence?? my big mac is rotting in 2 days in stead of 3!!! man global warming is alive and kicking. but my ice cream still lasts 10 seconds which the time it takes me to gobble it up!!!!! so no global warming I say. okay. stupid me. maybe its just that there was ghost that cameinto my house. ghosts!! man...I love santa!!!! he came to visit me on route66...and oh shane!!! he will the reason we win 66 games too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

did I mention I am managing to get my hops back after they decided to hide in my foot for the last 2 yeras???

 

That's why the management was wrong.

Like you, they overrated Yao-TMAC too much. it is not even funny.

 

Gee-f#$%in wiz

For the umpteenth bazillion time. The Rockets were not making a "pay-off" move.

THEY WERE TRYING TO WIN IMMEDIATELY

They didn't want to wait around to see if Mr.-dropped-to-#14-because-his own-college-coach-dissed-him- was going to "pay-off"

THEY WERE GOING FOR A CHAMPIONSHIP.

Shane was picked because he played the tpe of defense Van-Gundy wanted and could shoot the three.

The Team even admitted

THEY HAD NO INTEREST IN GAY

IF SHANE HADNT BEEN AVAILABLE GAY WOULD HAVE DROPPED FURTHER

Jeff hates rookies anyway

 

@W-22:

 

Battier > Sefalosha > Rudy Gay

 

It happened so it just happened. Just move on the turn to the new page.

 

How are they overrated?

I have a final tomorrow or else I would have searched Yao/Mac's winning % when they are both healthy. Health problems are part of the game. Its not like Yao and Mac were the first stars to get injured. Look at Ralph Sampson's career. Look at Grant Hill's career. Look at Penny Hardaway's career. Look at Greg Oden's career. Injuries happen to players who are nice, a-holes, good, bad, have potential, don't have potential, etc. Injuries don't discriminate.

I don't understand how you can sit here and claim that management was wrong in trying to build around a duo consisting of a potentially dominant center and a great wing. Especially after watching the Lakers' be so dominant with a similar tandem. If that is the line of thinking, then why did management even go after Yao or T-Mac? We should have keep Stevie Franchise because if I am not mistaken, he also put up really good numbers on O while playing very little D. And why did management take a chance on Chuck Hayes b/c he can't put up any numbers on O? According to the Gay supporters, we don't need defense or leadership, all we need are guys that can put up 20-30 points a game for us.

Man, management was stupid in trying to follow the blueprint of the the 80's Celtics, 90's Rockets, and 00's Lakers by trying to build around a potential dominant duo of Yao/Mac, and should have just followed the blueprint of the Suns and Warriors. Who needs defense and leadership when you can just get people to run up and down and shoot as if its NBA Live.

If Kobe Bryant (arguably the greatest offensive player in the history of the game) couldn't take the Lakers anywhere until Gasol came to town, I don't think Rudy Gay would have been much of a savior to the Houston Rockets.

 

were you being sarcastic? I couldn't really tell. Anyway I'll take you at face value:

1) Battier has been a better player than Rudy Gay this past three years. As others have already pointed out, Gay's D has been horrendous. It doesn't matter how pretty your FG% is or how many points you score, if you don't defend properly than what's the point of scoring 20 when you're giving your opponent 18? Battier doesn't put up points but his D and intangibles more than makes up for it.

2) Gay is a soon to be free agent. We can get him if we pony up the cash, if that's really what Alexander, DM and Adelman decide. Sure the Grizz can offer more, but realistically speaking I doubt the Grizz will spend big time money to keep Gay if he gets a serious offer.

If you look at it that way, we really came out on top. We avoided paying Gay lottery money when he was clearly not playing the way a lottery pick should, and now we can offer for him as soon as his contract expires.

 

Lets for argument sakes say the rockets beat utah, which they didn't and killed all theories about the team being a contender and dallas beat golden state which they didn't, how would you feel playing dallas? The same dallas that has beaten the rockets a lot . The same dallal that smoked the rockets in the playoffs a couple of years earlier. The rocket haven't been a title contender since 97. A team has to make advances to be called a contender or have a team better constitued than rafer,shane,and hayes starting. If they were ever a real contender, they wouldn't have lost to a young team like utah when they had home court advantage.,

 

I think I speak for everybody when I say....

WTF????

 

Lets for argument sake say the Sonics didnt get upset by the Nuggets on our first title run and they stomped us like they always did, does that not make Dream's Rockets contenders? Say what you will about Dream and company, but the difference between them winning rings and not is a couple of shots and lucky breaks. What if the kiss of death clanks? What if Anderson doesnt miss 4 straight free throws in the Orlando series?

Dallas didnt beat GS, they were eliminated and our path to the title was Jazz, GS, SA and Cle all teams we could of easily won series against. Did we? No, but we had a great chance too. No no my friend, we were a legit contender in 2007. Unfortunatley we didnt know Battier could guard D.Will and Yao has trouble getting crucial rebounds.

Again in 2009, say what you want about McGrady, but if he doesnt have the injuries we had a crazy deep team. Enough to topple the powerhouse Lakers? Not for a certainty, but we definately would of had a great opportunity.

I especially like your Dallas comment about them smoking us a few years earlier. I don't know what series you were watching, but we were dominating them until the "incident". Now I know you dont believe in that, which is fine, but to say they smoked us is just plain wrong.

The Jazz were a terrible match up for us, plain and simple. We were a better team, but the matchup problems they created were too much for us.

 

did not read. that red font made me think i made an error on my paper or something.

 

Well...as long as you're posting on a message board while drunk and not driving around town...

 

How can you compare a team with the best player or one of in the game and fresh off a 7 game series they couldve won to a team that acheived jack squat. The rockets in 94 were a 2 seed with the 2nd best record in the entire nba. There is no comparison and for argument sake, i don't think that rockets team wouldve beaten the sonics. Guess what? If the sonics handle their business and the rockets handle their business, they meet in the conf finals. There is a huge diference in how the 07 rockets with their holes would fill and play compared to the 94 rockets. The only guy who could crack the 94 rotation on the 07 team was probably tracy. Every other player at every position was better than the 07 squad. Not to mention every night, hakeem was the best player on the floor.

 

W_22 Streak. Do you have some cliff notes to your red massacre ?

 

For the sake of this thread and for the first and last time the answer is still that the trade is legit and should be made over and over and over and over again. Like most of our fellow friends here, we needed a complementary player not a "soon-to-be" star (super was omitted, my apologies). It would be hard for Rudy to evolve to what he is now if he were on this team. With limited minutes, we might not be discussing this in the first place because only few would notice his potential. Another point is that we needed to win immediately because we are on the road to the championship. I think that Shane is a perfect fit on our team because he has the basketball maturity, a great stopper, a role player, and a great teammate. We needed a proven guy with a proven discipline for the game. Also, we are not a defensive team right now if not for the Shane Battier factor. That's why I like this team very much, we can run and gun if we want to and also we can take the tempo down and lock everyone up. Defensive guy's like Shane give the team the ability to play an above average to superior defense.

Rudy Gay is one heck of a player I'll give you that. But he's the Grizz's player and not ours. If you really look up to the guy, join the Grizz fan club or something or better yet, give him a chance to grow and Memphis is the place right now for that and not Houston. He is not who he is right now if not for the minutes he is getting there. Let it go man, let it go.

I uphold your courage to post this thread knowing that fact that most (if not all) of us are against you but for the last time, do not cry over spilled milk.

1 star for the thread and another star for the courage

 

You can't just compare players' numbers to decide who is better for the team. Battier's defense and leadership have influenced the on-court culture of the Rockets and made them better. Why don't more people get this? One of the reasons the Rockets are winning now, even without their superstars, is because Morey assembled the right combination of players. The collect-as-many-stars-as-you-can, numbers-are-everything thinkers would make lousy general managers because of this oversimplified approach. Their teams would have plenty of Zach Randolphs or Iversons or Rudy Gays, and zero Shane Battiers or Chuck Hayeses or Luis Scolas, and they'd have sky-high payrolls --and mediocre records.

 

Rockets should have got Kyle Lowry his ROOKIE year in that deal along with Shane Battier, if the Rockets woulda sweetened up the offer. I'm sure if I check back on my 2006 posts I said that plenty.

Right, as bad as Rudy Gay is a sieve on defense its kinda hard to project he'da been equally as bad in another organization. Plus there's been 2 different coaches with the Rockets. Ariza's always been a solid defender but he's actually defending DOWN this year -Offense tilted up/Defense titled down. Who's to say Gay couldn't tilt down on offense but tilt up on D?

I'da liked to have thought Van Gundy coulda implemented some defense into Rudy Gay if he's a worth a darn as a coach. I dont think Gay's as much a lost cause on D as Steve Novak. We'll never know, though fans couldnt help but notice how a 1 dimensional scoring no passing no defending Von Wafer could help team.

 

Half of that isnt relevant to the convo, the top teams in the previous decade were way better than what plays today. In the West the real players were Seattle, SA, Houston and the Jazz. The first round matchups were rarely good series. All the other teams were mediocre. Congrats to them on thier first round win over the...Clippers.

If the 2005-2008 Rockets were in the East they would of been to the conference finals numerous times. They accomplished nothing, but that does not mean they werent in the running.

 

If houston were in the east or if houston were in another division is bs. They play in the division that has been dominated by the spurs. They play in a conf that has been dominated by the spurs and lakers. Thats the truth and unless stern decides to change the alignment, the rox have to do better than making the playoff to be considered contenders. When they rox won rings, the east was viewed as the better conf. When the lake show was rolling with magic and crew, the east was considered the best conference. Everyone plays the same amount of games and to be champion, there is no easy was to do it. First, you have to win rounds before you can be considered a threat.