Trade rumors are a’ swirling around the idea that Rudy Gay could come to the Warriors.
I’m open to the idea that Rudy Gay might flourish in the right situation. That’s a nice way of saying that I don’t understand the interest in him in this instance.
There were a lot of jokes about how, after John Hollinger joned up with the Grizzlies, Rudy Gay was done in Memphis. After all, Gay’s 14.94 PER is a shade below average and he’s making $53 million.
The funny thing about these jokes, apart from that these jokes are funny, apart from that these jokes are funny because they might be true, is that PER likes Rudy Gay best among aggregate advanced statistics. It’s hard to know the value of taking a shot, and PER errs on the side of rewarding shot takers. This isn’t necessarily a flaw in the metric; It just means that PER is more forgiving of Rudy than Win Shares and Wins Produced–as a matter of philosophy.
This is another way of saying that so many stats tend to sneer at Rudy Gay once you look beyond scoring average. If that sentence reads at all familiarly, it’s because I and others have made similar statements about Monta Ellis for years. By the way, did you hear that Scott Skiles is no longer coach of the Milwaukee Bucks? Funny, that.
If you’re an optimist about this possible move, perhaps it’s because you believe that Gay will shoot much better on a team with better spacing. He’s had one year of 39% three point shooting, but is 34.5% for his career. We’ve seen what better spacing has done to Carmelo Anthony’s three point stroke, so maybe the same can happen to Rudy.
The problem is that Golden State can’t provide the spacing that New York does, on account of playing a traditional power forward in David Lee. There exists another possibility that David Lee’s passing will compensate for the lack of space, thus freeing Rudy Gay’s three pointer like a glorious, fluttering, ascending speckled dove. If you’re betting on that, that’s your gamble. I’m not with you on it.
Life is good in the Bay Area right now, and while I applaud aggressive tactics, I would also prefer an objective reason to believe in a gamble. Rudy Gay and his $53 million contract haven’t delivered much in the way of value so far. As I wish the player in question would do more often, I’d pass here.
I think the Hollinger part is what is the scariest for this. There are simply too many red flags regarding his production. I would only do a Gay/Allen for Biedrins/Jefferson/Tyler and future considerations. In other words, a trade would not happen.
Just to expound on ESS’s points… here are Rudy’s advanced metric stats (the page has pretty much all his stats, as well)
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gayru01.html#advanced::none
Not only is his PER at the lowest level it’s been in 6 years (since his rookie season), his True Shooting percentage (TS%) is at a career low and his Effective Field Goal % (eFG%) is as well, both probably stemming from the fact that ESS mentioned above about his 3pt shooting being low.
Probably the most eyebrow-raising stat combined with these other declines is his usage rate (USG%) which is at a career high.
What all this means is that not only is his shooting on a tangible decline, but he is shooting MORE.
If there are people that want to put a declining high-usage shooter like Rudy Gay (14.9 PER, 48.4 TS%, 25.7 USG%) on the same floor as the Warriors’ star shooting PG (18.9 PER, 57.1 TS%, 24.4 USG% and still feels low) and even David Lee (running a 20.7 PER, 57.6 TS%, 23.8 USG%), I’m not one of them.
The Warriors could get a deal done if they wanted to. A deal might need to involve 3 teams. Here is my idea.
http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ajzaa3d
Warriors trade: Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, Richard Jefferson, 2014 2nd round pick, 2015 1st round pick, and 2017 1st round pick.
Warriors get Rudy Gay.
Grizzlies trade Rudy Gay.
Grizzlies get Harrison Barnes, Draymond Green, Daniel Gibson, 2014 2nd round pick, & 2015 GSW 1st round pick.
Cleveland trades Daniel Gibson
Cleveland gets Richard Jefferson & 2017 GSW 1st round pick.
Explanation: Gay is a huge upgrade to Barnes, and we get to dump Jefferson. While it sucks to give up on Green this early, Gay is worth it. As for the draft picks, we already have an influx of youth. All 5 of our starters would be under 30 years old still with Lee the oldest at 29. We’d still have Ezeli, Jenkins, Tyler, and Bazemore off the bench who are still up and comers. In addition to that, we’d still have Brandon Rush who was just realizing his potential, as well as hopefully still having Jack and Landry who are just entering their respective primes’. We would likely need another small forward, as we would have traded all 3 of them in this deal, and to combat this, we could look to re-sign Dominic McGuire, assuming the Pacers cut him shortly as they’re expected to do.
Pg: Curry, Jack, Jenkins
Sg: Thompson,Rush(injured), Bazemore
Sf: Gay, McGuire
Pf: Lee, Landry, Tyler
C: Bogut, Ezeli, Biedrins
not too shabby….