Why did Carroll Dawson trade Rudy Gay for Battier???????

You know nothing about Morey... paying max money to a good but not very good player is not the style or philosophy of Morey.

 

The joke's on you pro-tankers, who flip flop when faced with the reality regarding Gay, lol.

 

repped if i could

 

I didn't say that Morey would pay him Max money. I said that he is the type of player/talent that Morey is seeking. I didn't mention contracts once, and not sure why you did.

I'm not for the Rockets tanking. But Rudy Gay is better than anyone on the Rockets current roster. Ironic that that guy would say that.

 

4 more years? hell no!

 

Rudy Gay = overrated

Like Joe Johnson, he is almost a prototypical example of a non-Moneyball player. Plays 40 mpg to just about fail to reach that vaunted 20 ppg that will impress people (get close enough and people will round up and call you a "great" scorer). Takes a good number of shots, but scores with mediocre or subpar efficiency. Doesn't contribute in other areas of the game.

The team already had T-Mac and Yao, and people had already been complaining for years that Yao wasn't getting enough shots off despite his efficiency. Adding Gay would've just diluted the offense even more. Battier, on the other hand, provided low volume, high efficiency offense, along wit hsome of the best man and team defense in the league. The team was in "win now" mode at the time, and I still support the decision.

If the Rockets had gotten Gay, he would've either bolted the team by now, or handicapped the Rockets with terrible max contract like he did for the Grizzlies. You don't pay max money for a guy who is above average at best.

 

Contracts, like it or not, do affect personnel decisions. Morey could not pay Gay any less than max money since his contract is set for several more years.

 

Conley doesn't make the max, or even close to it. Under the new CBA, it is going to be more difficult to assemble a roster like that.

TMac was in his prime would we traded for and resigned him. TMac was way better than Gay has ever been or ever will be.

 

Yet Cleveland offered their #4 pick for Rudy Gay, max contract and all. Even if you personally dislike Gay, he does have value around the league, and he could have netted us our new franchise center, Jonas V.

I love Morey, but that transaction didn't look great at the time and looks even worse in hindsight. Luckily for us he makes very few of those bad decisions, but if we're calling a spade a spade, that one was a blunder.

 

Chris Bosh

 

If you don't know why Gay was traded for Battier, then you are not a smart Rockets fan.

 

Chris Bosh is an excellent player.

 

I can't believe the number of quality SFs the Rockets have traded away on draft day through the years:

Lewis
Jefferson
Gay
Batum

Morey, at least, recouped Lee from Batum.

 

He is an excellent 3rd wheel.

We saw what he could do as the man in Toronto.

 

Batum netted us a good SF in Ron Artest. (In reality he netted us Donte Greene, Dorsey, and a 2nd rounder). Later trading Greene, a first rounder and Bobby Jackson for Artest.

We got Courtney Lee when we dealt Trevor Ariza to the Hornets.

 

Absolutely right. That was a win now move. Shane was a very good defender back then and he was the ultimate team player. Unfortunately, injuries to Tmac and Yao killed our chances. When both were healthy Rockets were one of the best teams in the League.

 

Play many times better than Rudy Gay ever has, or likely, ever will?

 

I agree with everything you said, but I was FUMING about the trade at the time. Battier was not a bad player by any stretch of the imagination, but I felt like the 8th pick for him was not enough, as Jerry West got the better end of another deal. I felt like it wouldn't be enough to get past the Spurs, Suns, or Mavs. We did add Bonzo Wells, but he barely played and we did not have a team that could reach the NBA Finals.

Still, Gay needed to develop into the player he is now, and that probably wasn't going to happen with the current squad at that time.

Though, the crowd that was Gay 4 Battier was pretty happy that off-season. On the contrary, I was not too broken up with seeing Shane play in a Rockets uniform, since he is like one of the most awesome NBA players ever, in a personal sense.

 

If things worked out as plan, Bonzi Wells would have been that guy. He averaged 23/12 against the Spurs just a few months before.