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

It's only the payoff year because Rudy had a good game today, which is where all of this talk is coming from. I dont know how him being on yuor fantasy team tells you what kind of defensive player he is, can you explain? Is it just his steals per game?

 

Would you rather have gay or ariza right now? I also assume you think when the rox had 4 players score in a playoff game it wouldn't have helped either right?

 

Is this the equivalent of you jamming your fingers into your ears and sticking your tongue out at all of us?

 

So you think he would only play 20 mins a game? How can a team contend for a title when they never made it past the first rd in years?

 

After i read your post and couple of your own replies, i couldn't help myself but to RATE A SINGLE STAR (which is TERRIBLE) for the first time since i've become a member in clutchfans.

 

Well, Shane scored in that game, so it's not like replacing Shane with Gay would make a difference. Or are you suggesting Gay could create shots for his teammates when a healthy Tmac failed to do so?

 

If Daryl Morey based his traded off fantasy numbers, he would be fired tomorow. You need some better facts. Shane has been the leader and heart and soul of this team. I would do the trade knowning what I know now in a heart beat.

1 star

 

Thus proving once and for all that you shouldn't start a thread if you know nothing at all.

 

What I'm saying is when you have a guy that can get his own shot without relying on yao or tracy makes their job easier. The reason utah could make the rox shoot terrible was because they could play yao one on one and tilt towrds tracy. Since the rockets didn't have another player that could beat his man off the dribble, the rockets had trouble scoring after game 1. As the series wore on it was the same concept and the rockets role players failed big time. The closeout on the line were so undisciplined that most coaches would turn over in their graves, but because shane,luther,rafer, and anyone else the rockets had was incapable of doing so, it worked.

 

So if you replace shane battier with the WORST defender in the league, how does that affect;

1. Yao Mings foul situation
2. Mcgrady's already lazy effort on D
3. The ability to put better offensive players in the team(brooks, landry) without worrying about how they will impact D
4. Yao Ming's emergence as the Leader of the team, do you think there a posibility that tmac and rudy will take turns going 1 on 1 igonoring Yao ala cat/franchise days?

 

In fairness, I think how a player fits into a team defensively is really team/context dependent. The defensive adjusted +/- shows how much better his team plays defensively with him on the floor. Maybe on a smarter, more veteran team, with better coaching, he learns his role better and he develops better chemistry with his teammates. I mean, I don't think its fair to conclude that Gay is a lose cause defensively.

 

Are you telling me that the Rockets weren't consider as a title contender for the past 3 years when they were playing together?

 

First of all, when we had a Rafer on our team as the starter pg, we were basically playing 4 v 5 in the offense. Hence, Yao was given double team or triple team on daily basis because Rafer can only make the opposite team paid maybe 1 out of 15 nights. You cannot deny the fact that they have became a really solid team since the era of Jon Barry and Bobby Sura. Sicne that year the Rockets had the potential to challenge the greats like the spurs and the lakers every year if not for all the injuries and bricker alston.

 

I was there too, one of my favorite memories as a rocket fan. I even had a painting commissioned to represent this great moment.

 

Do you really want me o answer that question?

Trugoy, maybe you need to go back and watch that series. Why would rudy and tracy take turns going one on one? Does it matter who the job gets done? I don't care who shot or scored as long as the win happened.

Durvasa, for some reason, i don't think posters understand how a young guy falls in line when he comes to a team with vets. I for one, and i could be solo, but i think tracy plays better when he's constantly challenged. When he had to guard dirk for the entire series, he was more mentally focused throught the game. he's just one of those types that has to be pushed all the time. During the utah series, their problems were scoring big time. Also, they didn't have another backup wing, so when utah rolled harpring out as a reserve, he would post head up from the word go. There were alot of reason to keep the 8 pick in the present and future. I'm waiting for someone to bring up swift too.

 

Funny all this time I thought we never intended to draft Rudy Gay instead if the Battier deal hadn't gone down we would have draft Thabo Sefolosha, ...my mistake I guess

 

He "gets you" boards, blocks, and steals? This isn't fantasy basketball or NBA 2k10. He isn't "getting you" anything.

It's fair to question the trade, but you are embarrassing yourself. We weren't going to take Gay if we had kept the pick so it doesn't matter.

Battier has been a key part of 3 winning teams. He is a team-defensive superstar. Meanwhile Gay has been putting up numbers on a horrible team- you can go look at perennial losers throughout the league and see that certain players numbers will be inflated on those bad teams (ie Mike James in Toronto). Not that Gay doesn't have the potential to be good on a good team, but let's wait until that happens before we crown his a$$.

 

Another thing to consider is that Gay is only marginally better than Ariza, and that is only because he seems to be scoring rather efficiently this season, whereas Ariza has been anything but efficient on the offensive side.


I doubt if Gay were in place of Ariza we'd be much better, probably worse even given Gay's complete and utter lack of understanding defensive strategy.

 

We would had a wayyyy better chance if Rafer could actually make his open jumpers or produce anything that's positive beside bringing the basketball to half court. As i have been saying for yearssss, Rafer was the weakest link through out the year he was wearing red.

 

Do you think its easier to put up numbers on a poor team or a good team? Just asking