No way was Rudy Gay dragging them down. Their defensive identity was there before he got hurt. Plugging in Battier and Allen was nice, but it was apparent that if Zach and Gasol were struggling to score, the offense bogged down. With Conley stepping up, the Grizzlies have a good future.
All good points, however I'm not sure how Rudy Gay provides a counter point to the Grizzlies. Although he does have closing skills, you can't deny how much Battier's 3 point shooting skills have opened things up in the middle. Maybe he'll improve even more next season but 16 shots on 0.548 TS% is beyond horrible for a team, I'd much rather distribute most of those shots to Z-Bo and Gasol. If Rudy Gay manages to obtain a 3 pt shot this summer he'd be perfect for the Grizzlies, however until he does I think Battier is still the better complement for the Grizzlies team.
Honestly? Would you go up to say feel jackson and say shane battier opens the floor up more than Rudy Gay? There is no way you'd risk being laughed at like that.
Yes, I think the Grizzlies went on a 13-1 run or something like that before Gay got injured. However I looked at those games and it seemed like they won those because of Tony Allen's emergence, not because Gay was closing games out and willing them to victory. If you looked at Gay's performance during those games he had some pretty crap games like 5-15 or 2-10 and his team still won. Z-Bo didn't really take his game to a new level, IMHO he just got more shots due to Gay's absence and thus the team became more potent offensively because of it. Its simple logic, Gay was taking 16 shots a game on 0.548 TS%, you take all that out and replace them with more shots for Z-bo at 0.552 TS%, Marc Gasol at 0.580 TS%, Tony Allen at 0.562% and voila! Better offensive team with everyone "contributing".
Mr.Glue is important,but people over rate his impact all the time. There are lots of other good players on the Grizzlies apart from Zach and Marc. Mr.Glue had a bad game tonight when his team needed him.
rudy gay's absence definitely brought the OP's basketball IQ down. rudy gay's 3pt% is 39.6%. his fg% is 47%. are you telling me gay won't open up the middle for zbo? mayo alone opened it up tremendously and mayo isn't even close to the caliber of rudy gay. do you even watch basketball? how can even a casual NBA watcher not know gay is a near all-star caliber offensive player. and this guy plays above average defense (or at least he puts in the effort).
Tony Allen's emergence is the primary reason for the Grizzlies success down the stretch, IMO. His numbers from mid-Feb thru early April speak for themselves.
Agreed that the Grizzlies simply got smarter once he went down. DD was onto something with the hierarchy aspect. Knowing what they know now: that the team is clearly inside-outside with Z-Bo and Gasol needing the most touches, it should make Gay's role from here on out very clear. And for as much as the Grizzlies need to look inside first, they still need a perimeter scorer. The catch is they need to add this perimeter scoring without sacrificing the defensive identity Tony Allen has kind of given this team with his emergence. Gay hasn't exactly been known for his defense -- that needs to change. Can Gay come back and play 2nd-3rd fiddle? Will he focus more on defense? These are the questions that make him trade bait from Memphis' strandpoint, IMO. I'd much rather have an Andre Iguodala type in this role than I would Gay if I were the Grizzlies.
I could actually envision Gay & Gasol turning out to be the most substantial offer for Dwight Howard.
Griz fans seem to feel like adding Gay would have not subtracted something also. Sure Gay would have given them more offensive punch in certain ways. But he also would have changed the focal point of the offense and weakened the defense. The interior focus and intensity of the Griz without Gay is what took them so far. You cant add a guy and tell yourself everything else would have been the same. Now if you keep the same focus and let Gay take the place of the guys who were the 3rd and 4th options. If you let Marc and Zach do their thing first, then Gay would have helped them. Perhaps put them over the top. But thats not what they had been doing prior to Gay's injured.
Maybe so, but there is zero chance Howard would sign long-term with Memphis. The Magic's choices are limited by Howard.
Rudy Gay had transitioned to the #2 option before his injury. Look at his FGAs. Like what said, it would have happened earlier except Gasol and ZBo were hurt. We need Gay but we also need another big and a scoring/shooting PG.
Rudy is a good player, so he certainly wasn't dragging Memphis down. But having him isn't likely to have made them that much better. Post players like Zbo and Gasol benefit most from having elite 3-pt shooters on their team. Rudy is fine at that, but not noticeably better than Battier. Meanwhile Battier is a clearly better defender. To get a real benefit out of Rudy's offense, Memphis would have had to play a more uptempo game. OKC is faster than Memphis and a fastbreaking game would probably help them more than Memphis. Memphis might have a little easier time scoring on slashing baskets, but those kinds of baskets are very difficult to come by in the playoffs, when every team is focused on guarding the paint. Memphis should have an improved regular season next year. But if they want to be better in the playoffs, what they need most is better defense from Gay.
They could have used his ability to make shots in the clutch in the playoffs.....But maybe Mayo can be that player because he has the capability...Just needs to work on his focus...No reason for him not to be a consistent 20 point scorer (Rip Hamilton type)....They're pretty set without him but I wouldnt just get rid of him to get rid of him....I wonder how he would feel about being a 6th man who gets 30-35 mpg....
Would they come to position to play triple OT game? Maybe not. This team found a second option that worked perfectly against Spurs. Maybe first option would be holding them down against specific opponent. Are there any videos of Gay passing?
Yes 39.6%, but he only takes 2 three pointers a game. With only 2-3 attempts per game the sample size of his shots are way to small to judge his actual 3p%. And also only amateurs rely on FG%. You ALWAYS USE TS%, and based on this while not horrible Rudy Gay has only been average offensively. You bring up a great point, only casual observers (or die-hard fans like what) will think Rudy Gay is a near all star level talent. All star players have some sort of impact on their team, replace Lebron or Durant or Dirk with old man Battier and see what happens to their teams. Production is tangible, if Gay was an elite offensive talent the stats would bear that out. Oh yeah, I forgot your qualifier of "watching". ZOMG how could I miss these dunks?! And that silky smooth jumpshot <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9Gf_dIMPDkM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Oh wait this is the wrong player. From what I can "see" though this guy is near all star calibre as well. Let's sign Green up instead
