Every player with his skill set makes over 10 million: Luol Deng: 13 million, Danny Granger, 13 Million, Galinari 40 for 4 years, 9.4 this year, and Batum, 12.9. That is the going rate for players like Gay. Out of them all Galinari is by FAR the bargain, because other than Gay, I'd rather have him than any of them. But, like I said, you want an athletic big sf, you are going to have to pay for it.
None of those players make 16.4M like Gay. And Gays per is lower than all of them. Gay 14.4 Deng 15.6 Gallinari 17.5 Batum 17.2
Just traded Gay to Toronto in my 2K and dude is tearing it up. They have a real good squad there 2K-statistically speaking.
Selective pers. Plus, I'd like to point out that I was trying to put Gay's salary in perspective, not justify what he was making against his production. Rudy Gay's per has never been 14 or below since his rookie season and his per for the last 2 years were better than 17. I'd also like to point out that Gay's best year per-wise was over 18 in his second year. That ought to tell you something about per in general. Do you think rudy was better in year 2 than he was for the last 5 years. I don't think so. Efficiency doesn't = better player. Only a stat geek would think so.
Gay isn't worse, just not better. That is the frustrating thing about Rudy Gay. He has enormous talent, but he isn't getting better. If he had gone up from that 2nd year, he'd be a beast. Instead he's just good.
I think efficiency should be tied to a stat measuring the effectiveness of how a coach uses a player. A good way to look at this is football: if you have a star quarterback and a bunch of scrub wr, and no running game, his efficiency is going to suffer. In the case of Rudy Gay, the grizzlies offensive philosophy was equivalent to giving him a bunch of scrub players next to him. Another way to look at this; take Dwight Howard. His per is 4 to 6 points lower than it has been at any time in his career (except early obviously), ask yourself why? It is because the offense the lakers are running doesn't put Dwight in position to BE EFFICIENT. Backtracking a little bit here, if you watch the grizzlies play regularly, you'll realize that efficiency IS ALWAYS going to lower with their players because the grizzlies are a defensive minded team and PER doesn't do well evaluating defensive production. That is the reason I think that the grizzlies management just made the biggest blunder by trading Rudy if it was based on per.
The shortcomings of PER are well known. And while your argument about how he is played has merit, every other player could make the same case, although I will admit some players are better utilized than others. I dont think there are many who believe that Rudy was traded based on his PER, that is silly. He was traded because he made too much money compared to what production on both ends of the floor he gave the team.
Gay was traded based on $$$. Getting Prince to me made it the right move. Trading Speights & Ellington was a $$$ move that was absolutely stupid. That is just selling away depth.
So, if Rudy Gay had a per of say 24, they would have traded him? At least part of this was per, obviously, when the inventor of the metric is part of the decision making process.
Gay isn't 18M per year player, but to say he doesn't play defense and help his team win is ridiculous.
I think Toronto is top 5 defensive team right now, at least until Bargnani comes back. I hate DeRozan-Gay combo on offense, but it isn't bad on defense.
Hollins thinks differently about it than you. You ever catch watch hollins thinks about it? And before you go dismissing Hollins opinion on the matter, consider that he has a team that plays one of the best defensive schemes in years. The grizzlies defensive is pretty darn stout. Ever catch what Hollins says about Rudy's length and defensive prowess?
Well sure, if he played like Lebron, or even Harden, the money he is making would be justified, no, he wouldnt have been traded (although someone else probably would have to get their payroll down which was obviously a mandate here). The distinction I was making, and thought you were also, is that PER is not all telling, and therefore not the single ingredient that the decision was based on when evaluating his total contributions on the court.
Calm down dude. He is a legitimate scoring threat, and he is better than any other perimeter player we had outside of Tracy McGrady. I never said anything about turning the series around, all we needed was another threat for that game 7. We didn't need someone to turn the series around, we needed someone who would have a minor positive effect.
Welp, Hollinger probably used his own analysis that said the Grizz gave up 6 more points per 100 with him on the court. He also averages more turnovers than assists for his career. He's not a center, is he?
