If it works out that we gave up a ten and five player in Gay and basically a ten and five player in Stro, so we gave up a collective 20pts, 10 rebs per game. That's what Battier has to give the Rockets to break even. Time will tell, but I still think we gave up to much.
iono, i didn't like the trade but it was a good thing we did trade gay and swift, we may have escaped another bad year..other than that we'll have to wait until the season starts again for us to know if this trade as worth it or not.
Haven't you guys figured out that points and rebounds are NOT everything? Battier brings the intangibles that Swift doesn't and Gay probably won't, evidenced by his very high +/- rating. Sheesh, some people never learn.
Yeah I hear you that's why Bowen plays so many minutes and he's an all star every year. If the intangibles won games they would keep stats on them.
Um... Ryan Bowen had a -7.9 +/- rating in 2005-06. Clearly he isn't bringing the intangibles that Battier does, because if the differences don't show up on the normal stats, but they have an effect on the game, they would show up on the +/- rating.
The Rockets should've been able to get more for Gay AND Swift than just Battier. Battier is a JVG player for sure, but what if Van Gundy gets fired this offseason? Then a new coach comes in and has to deal with "Van Gundy players," meanwhile Gay contributes to the a Grizzlies team and dominates occasionally until he learns how to dominate more consistently, and then we REALLY start to regret the trade. Even Swift at the very least provides athleticism off the bench.
I've made my peace with the trade. While there were questions about Gay's motivation, there was one thing he did night in and night out at UConn that I really liked. Gay was a lock-down perimeter defender. And the Rockets got an even better perimeter defender. Even so, it's hard to ignore that Gay had nearly unlimited potential as a wing player in the NBA. He had most of the tools necessary to be a superstar. He only lacked only ball-handling skills (and possibly motivation) among wing player attributes to have that superstar ceiling. I said to a friend that it's not that much different than trading Luol Deng or Andre Iguodala for Shane Battier. Both bring more measureables than Battier right now and have pretty good potential even with incomplete games. But neither bring his experience, leadership, hustle, and "intangibles". (If Gay has motivation problems, he won't even be as good as those two players.) The real reason I have come like the trade is the versatility Battier brings to the table. During the Playoffs, a lot was made about having players like Josh Howard who can play multiple positions and do a little of everything. Battier can play 3 positions with at least some effectiveness. He can get 15 points such in the flow of the offense that no one really notices that he took a shot. And he hustles on defense, goes after loose balls, tips passes, and even blocks a few shots.
That's pretty much how I feel about this trade at least until the Rockets show me something in the regular season.
Don't mind Battier, just wish we would've gotten more in return. Actually, I still can't believe we made the deal. The logo ripped Dawson a new one.
That's the way I see it, but as soon as the pain subsides in the sphincter area some people forget they were raped. J. West can now say,"It's not really rape if the other party enjoys the forced penetration."
I think that this "69% in favor of the trade" result is based, partly, on the fact that Battier has played pretty well for Team USA. The other part is that nobody has seen Rudy Gay play since the NCAA Tournament. If Gay plays well his rookie year, I'd be very interested in seeing the results of a poll taken at point towards the end of the season. Even if he'd have played in the Rockie Mountain rookie deal and done well, it would sway votes. I think Gay will have a good year (not great, as in ROY, for example). My prediction is that, at the end of the season, the votes will even out more by then. What will the results be two to three years from now? That's when I think it'll be 69% towards this being a bad trade. I voted "Bad", by the way...just in case you can't tell.
Sorry, but that is absurd. If Stro plays the 4 for Memphis, and Gay plays the 3, and between them they generate 20 points and 10 rebounds, I suspect the Rockets made out like bandits. This is because Battier, even if worst came to worst and he only averaged 10 points and 5 rebounds himself, you would still have to combine his contribution with the other wing player, which in our case would be McGrady. You honestly believe a combination of Swift and Gay could ever be a better combo than Battier and TMac? As sophomoric as your declaration that Battier's stats alone must combine to be greater than the stats of two other players in order for the deal to even break even, the only REAL stat that counts is W's. Houston is going to have a TON more W's than Memphis over the next 5-6 years or so.
dawson has turned into bizzaro gm. you trade depth for talent, like the mcgrady deal, you don't trade depth for role players. that's just ignorant. there's no way battier can provide the production of two rotation players. nothing in his career suggests it.
Even if that does happen to be case(which hasn't held true for the last 4 years or so), the Battier trade will have had little impact in getting those "ton" more W's.
It's amazing you said that bc that's exactly what Battier is. Now, I have nothing against Battier but I felt we gave up too much to get him. Gay, I felt was most likely a top 5 player. The fact he slipped gave the Rockets possibly a top 3 player in the draft. Remember, Michael Jordan considered getting Gay at #3, but the other Bobcats manegement convinced him to pick Morrison. Had Charlotte drafted Gay instead and Morrison fell to us, would we still have done the trade? I've seen Gay on t.v. a few times and I thought with him on the team, next to T-Mac and Yao would've been the best trio in the laegue to watch. We'd still be missing pieces on this team, but truth is we were not going to win a championsip this year. I thought after 2-3 years, we'd be winning the 'chip. Instead, in 2-3 years Battier will be 30, T-Mac 29, and on the verges of decline. I still think they'd be good, but unless the Rockets add more pieces, they're not strong enough to win championships.
I like the trade and have since the beginning. Gay will either be a bust or a star. I don't think he can settle into a "solid role player" The fact is we need neither. We didn't need another bust from the draft a la Eddi Griffin. We really didn't need another star. I have said it before, and I will continue saying it. Most of the teams that win championships do not win with multiple stars. They win with a stud, a second stud with a defined second stud role, and a bunch of role players who fit in their role. IMO Battier definitely fits into that role in a great way. I know it seems like we gave up a lot, but we didn't give up stro and gay for Battier. We gave up Gay for Battier. Stro was a throw in to make the salaries work. I don't think either team wanted him that bad. Great trade! Not signing another decent role player for the 4/5... dissapointing.
yeah that was my point. battier was lotto pick, but its all about perception. battier was never expected to be anything than a role player. rudy gay may not live up to expectations, but is it really reaching to expect him to give 10 points a game and five boards.
We have to realize that this trade is not isolated. I believe this trade decision was based on the hope that we could land Mike James, which looked pretty good to us at that time. So Yao + JHo + TMac + Battier + James would be a perfect "win now" team (well, I know JHo is the weakest link). After James went to Minny, We had to go for plan B, which is to split MLE for Snyder/V-Span/JL3 to lower the risk. Now we look back, if we knew that we had no chance to land James, we probably had kept Gay and Swift.
Correct me if I'm wrong but we did give up two players for one. That's why I added Gay and Stro's stats. The Grizz didn't give us T-mac so he is a non-factor. And saying that the only real stat is W's is tricky because we may win more this season, but it will probably be attributed to better health from T-mac and Ming more than Battier's joining the team.
