I remember actually rewatching the game and tracking who was defending Boozer in detail. Created a thread on it, even, shortly after the game: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=119751&highlight=boozer
I felt the same way. The 8th pick for Battier trade was extremly short-sighted. The Rox basically gave away their best trade asset for a frickin' role player. You never deal a lotto pick unless there's an all-star caliber player in return. That's what you call bad asset management. Not so genius compared to the Jeff Green for Ray Allen trade.
Echoing others' sentiment here regarding the Battier trade. In and of himself, we're fine with his acquisition, just not at the price we paid. Whether we'd have taken Gay, Sefolosha, or whomever is besides the point. Role players != Lotto Picks whether by trade or draft.
Well if you think about it we gave up the 8th pick in weak draft for a proven defender and floor leader and who until Scola came along was the 3rd best player on our team. Celtics gave away a top 5 pick in a loaded draft for the 4rth best player on their team, one who is incidentally making the max. During his tenure as a Celtic Ray Allen's season and playoff performance are horrible, especially when you compare it to his contract. He may be clutch, but if he wasn't playing so poorly he wouldn't have to be clutch in the first place.
Andre Miller, Jamal Crawford, Desagana Diop, Chris Wilcox, TJ Ford, Rafael Araújo, Channing Frye, Rudy Gay, Brandan Wright, Joe Alexander, Jordan Hill... Those players were the 8th picks of the NBA draft in the last 10 years. Reading those names tells me it's a crap shoot selecting at that spot and hoping the player pans out. Reading people say that we should have gotten more value for that pick is 20/20 hindsight to me, we could have done worse then getting Battier. Sure I griped also that we should have received more for the pick, but my request was only for the Rockets to swap with the Grizz's other lower 1st round pick, which ironically turned out be Kyle Lowry (which shows Morey knows how to correct his mistakes). And people forget that we were trading away Stromile Swift's contract, who was suddenly overpaid and overrated after a very underwhelming 1st year as a Rocket. JVG wanted to get rid of him in the worst way. His value plummeted so bad that one can come to the conclusion that we had to dangle the 8th pick in order to get rid of his contract. The Grizz certainly wouldn't have accepted a Swift/Battier straight up trade, especially with Jerry West still as GM back then. Just imagine what our defensive identity would be with Rudy Gay and Stromile Swift as rotation players if the trade never happened (and eschewing the known fact that the Rockets would have picked Sefolosha). Anybody actually think we would have been a better team if we drafted Sefolosha? I don't. And another little known factoid, Shane was a lottery pick himself, and a higher pick then what he was traded for. Sure many will say his actual value was lower (in their opinion) then the perceived worth of the 8th pick in 2006, but again it's a crap shoot to try to get the perceived equal value in return. Especially when no one actually knows what that value is, other then the team trading it away and the team trying to trade for it. Whoever said the value of a lottery pick must be an all-star in return must have forgot that there are 14 lottery picks, not all lottery picks have the same value, and certainly not all of those picks will get you an all-star in return.
You're sugarcoating the trade by being extremely vague and misleading. The Rockets gave up a young athletic skilled player who could be a legit third scorer (which they were in desperate need of) who will probably make a few all star games before his career is over. They got a good defender, career role player, and great citizen. The Celtics gave up the 5th pick which turned out to be Jeff Green, who may still turn out to be a nice player. The Celtics received a perennial all star, one of the games all time greatest shooters, and by all accounts good citizen. The Celtics wouldn't have won that championship without Ray Allen (although KG is the bigger piece). The Rockets billed Battier as the piece that would get them out of the 1st round. That didn't happen. If Scola and Artest hadn't been added they would most likely still be waiting to see the second round of the playoffs. I like Battier, but I still think the trade was a big set back. The team needed talent. JVG had this team playing top 5 defense before Battier, so you can't sell me that adding a long athletic guy like Gay would've dropped them significantly. It would've given them another piece on offense who can do more than stand in the corner and wait.
This. Yeah, you know how Battier was supposed to help us win now with all his intangibles that don't show up in the box score? Well in 06/07, Rudy Gay's adjusted plus/minus was better than Battier's (82games.com).
Have to be careful when saying one player's adjusted +/- is "better" than another's. Because the standard errors are so large, can't draw firm conclusions like that unless there's a very large difference. To illustrate, here's a normal distribution for Battier's and Gay's adjusted +/- when also taking into account the specified standard errors in your link, based on Ilardi's model (which isn't the only way to compute it), for the 06-07 season: <table><tr></tr><tr></tr></table> So to be more precise, you can say that Gay had a "better" adjusted +/- than Battier with some probability, according to Ilardi's model. It's also possible that it was worse (e.g., there's roughly an 80% chance Battier was positive, and roughly a 40% chance that Gay was negative).
Gay is so good that Memphis has yet to commit to extending the guy. The people still harping on this trade are nuts. What you guys don't see is how important it is to have a shut down wing defender. Why do you think it is that we have more success against the Lakers than a team like Denver, who is clearly more talented? Even if Battier doesn't shut someone down he manages to make them one dimensional (as is the case with Kobe). You guys are still polishing the knob of a guy who isn't even the best player on the worst team in the league? Its a given that his value is diminished with the roster that we have now
Because basketball is a game of match ups. Don't forget that the same guy playing solid defense on Kobe is the same guy who was borderline useless against Utah. He provided very little help in that match up. Also consider that players get to take a breather against Shane on defense. Gay might not be the best player on the Memphis roster (this is debatable), but would Battier even start for the Grizz??? Try to find 10 teams that would definitely start Battier over their current small forward. It's harder than you'd probably think.
Alright, here's another question to ask yourself. Take all the contenders that are out there. How many of them would rather have Rudy Gay instead of Shane Battier on their team this season? The idea with Battier was that he'd be a great complimentary piece on a championship team. Not a star.
He was touted as the part of the Big 3,by CD,when it was obvious to the naked eye that he was a complimentary piece. I didn't want Gay,but we should gotten more for the 8th pick,especially when Memphis was so high on him. That's the real point. Ironically,Lowry was picked with the 24th pick in the same draft. Even Les felt we didn't get enough for Gay.
This is why the trade was such a poor one. Teams like the Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, Cavs and other legit contenders can afford to tweak the roster by adding role players. The talent is in place already. They need to make small moves to fill in the gaps to go from contender to champion. The Rockets weren't there yet. It was clear that the Rockets needed more talent before they could be considered a contender. Talent fell into their laps in the draft, and they sent it away for a limited role player. Teams that can't get out of the 1st round can't afford to give away potential all stars to add a role player. It's not a coincidence that this team got out of the 1st round and pushed the Lakers when they started adding legit talented players around Yao. Guys like Scola, Artest, Aaron Brooks, Carl Landry, although non all star caliber bring the ability to make plays when given the opportunity on both sides of the ball. They bring more than just intangibles. They produce. These players have far more to due with the Rockets pushing the Lakers to seven games then Shane Battier's defensive efforts (although he still brings something).
The Rockets added more talent that offseason in Bonzi Wells and Kirk Snyder (a detail people often forget). Established athletic wings with good offensive skills. Is it Battier's fault that he's the only one of the three that gave the Rockets what was expected of him?
I made a big mistake here with the math, and I want to correct (though most people probably don't care ). Based on Ilardi's model, Battier would have had about a 74% chance of being positive, and Gay would have had a 17% chance of being negative. Moreover, based on the difference distribution (mean=1.48,std_dev=3.84), probability Gay's rating was truly greater than Battier's would be only 65%. Not nearly enough to say conclusively that Gay was better than Battier according to APM.
