There is no next Lebron. There is only one Lebron. If Gay was that good, he'd be the number 1 pick w/o a doubt. There must be a reason why he lasted 8 picks.
Playing great defense can be harder than you think. How many of the athletic freaks in the nba are good defenders? Lebron, Wade, VC, and at times Tmac do not play D. Just because JVG is a defensive minded coach doesnt mean he will turn all his players into defensive stoppers. Just look at Steve Francis. Also, I believe you underestimate how good Shane Battier really is. You have to know he played on an extremely deep squad in Memphis. I really believe Battier will have a break out season next year with the Rockets. He compliments Yao and Tmac perfectly. In Memphis he was at times their GO to guy, and thats not his game.
The biggest thing the trade did for Memphis was bring breathe life back into our franchise. 0-12 had sucked the life right out of the fanbase and there was a sense of being stuck in mediocrity. One other thing about Battier, he is a nonexistant playoff performer (same with Mike Miller) and the plan for this offseason was to offload both of them because of that fact. To get a prospect as promising as Rudy Gay (not to mention Swift being thrown in) was shocking to me personally.
I was shocked and pissed all at the same time when we traded our pick AND Swift (who I wanted badly on our team last summer) for Battier. Then I went to bed and dreamt that Battier was wearing an NBA CHAMPS hat with the Firing R and was being interviewed and they talked about the trade.....and everyone had a feeling like "damn, we were actually upset we got THIS guy?!" I thought about it and you know what....Rudy Gay will be Really Good, but that's all..... Shane Battier will be Really Good for the Best Team....but not be the Man, or even the Number Two guy......Three isn't bad! Mike James WILL (yes, he'll be here) be our "make your own shot kinda guy", but honestly....how many guys do you want who "make their own shot"? Sounds like a lotta guys who WANT to take shots, but there's only one ball on the court at a time! Yao first, T-Mac second, and then ROLE players! We WILL win the Finals NEXT season and be the favs to win it again the one after that! This will go down as a good trade because we will actually WIN NOW. LeBron as good as he is....still hasn't won anything, and who's to say that if Rudy Gay is the next LeBron that he'll win anything either? LeBron is awesome, don't get me wrong...but talent and being a number one doesn't equate to success!.... You are only as good as the people around you and how you fit in with them!
As a 3rd scorer, he needs make his teammates better ...not be a distraction... a tall order for most rookie. I can't think of many champsionship teams that had a rookie at a key spot. The Rockets had Cassel and even he came off the bench ...we don't have that luxery... we need a starter.
I think the Rockets will get burned by this trade in a few years. Gay will probably be a solid player in the NBA and he will probably give the Rockets fits every time he plays against them. Maybe they should have waited to see him in summer league before they shipped him off.
Emelim03, did this dream really happen? For some reason, when I read your dream, I got the image in my head and got super excited about next season...hehe. So I have questions for you a) are you usually psychic and correct about things? b) what year were the rox champs? hehe As for the thread subject, i have to agree with most...lebron was a no doubt type thing. Gay is/was not. Also agree with the low star rating of this thread...
I am normally correct on things when I see them so vividly....I'm not Ms. Cleo, so don't think that....but I am a broncos fan and before we won our championships in the late 90s....I dreamt that elway was wearing a back to back champs hat (BEFORE he even won one!) I felt like I was on the court with Shane in my dream just like with John and I woke up with goosebumps! Yao was MVP avg 28 and 14 per in the series (announcers were talking about it.) and all this was NEXT SEASON! It's time to get excited about the season!
Ha, I missed this thread. It's obviously someones attempt to be ridiculous for the sake of rallying more of us who are against the trade for something else. And that is Rudy Gay is in no way going to be the "next" Lebron. I hate anytime someone uses the word "next". The next MJ. The next Bird. Psshhht. Predicting how a player is going to perform before he's even seen a minute of game action is pointless. After all that, I want Gay back. Yeah, I said Gay back.
Nope. He was in his 2nd year. Prince averaged just over 3 ppg his rookie year. But Prince is potentially a good comparison to Rudy Gay. Interestingly, Tayshaun is 6-9, 215 ...virtually identical to Gay (6-9, 220). This BBS would piss on themselves if we traded Tayshaun Prince for Battier. Lets look at their career #'s: Tayshaun: 4 year veteran Battier: 5 year veteran Tayshaun: 11.6 ppg Battier: 10.5 ppg Tayshaun: 4.2 rpg Battier: 4.8 rpg Tayshaun: .6 bpg Battier: 1.0 bpg I think it is somewhat realistic to think that Rudy Gay could look like Tashaun after 4 years ...not Lebron James. So we could wait 4 years for Rudy Gay to grow up or we could get that very same production out of Battier right now. I support the decision for the latter. We absolutely will be contending this season if Yao and TMac both have good seasons. Count on it. Winning teams have first...star players. Secondly, solid rotational players. We need guys that can be ready to compliment the team now. We could wait 4 years for Rudy Gay to become as good as Battier or we can have Battier now.
Interesting comparison. What is their difference in wingspan or "length" as ESPN draft guys would term? I think that might be a difference in their play. One of the things that I like about Prince is his long arms help his defensive game. Do you think Gay will make as big of a Defensive impact? Like the gay-prince comparisons more than the gay-lebron comparisons.
That's far more likely than Gay becoming a MVP in his first three seasons. Eight teams passed this guy up for a reason folks, its not a coincidence. Honestly, I still stand by the Caron Butler comparison he'll be a 15-17 point a night guy with some wild athleticism to go with it, he is not the second coming of Jordan. He was the eighth pick in a draft that was universally regarded as weak. Whoever started this thread is the same kinda idiot who thought that Olawakandi was going to be the next Duncan, just because he was not born in the continental United States. In four years there may be some regret, but I will take wagers right now on who will have a better record next season us or Memphis. Say twenty in the tip jar.
prince comparison is okay.. but I only brought it up thinking which long athletic SF rookie helped in winning a championship.. but realistically, I don't even think Rox will win the championship in at least another 2 years.. we first need to get past the first round.. then we need experience in competing after the first round.. a better comparison physically IMO is josh howard.. he's long, athletic, and explosive.. he was already good during his rookie year 8+pts/5+rebs.. and during his sophomore year 12+pts/6+rebs he helped dallas beat the rox in the first round.. then last year he was if not no 2 option no 3 option for a mavs team which went to the finals for the first time.. he had 15+pts/6+rebs..
