Instead, Gasol and Randolph became the Grizzlies’ best players, Conley bought into Lionel Hollins’ system and became an unselfish teammate and Mayo even surpassed Gay as a potential building block. to play his sidekicks and Gay never made the leap.Īt the 2009 draft, the Grizzlies traded for Zach Randolph to be the Grizzlies’ post presence along with a young Marc Gasol and the team’s #2 overall pick in Hasheem Thabeet. The Grizzlies added OJ Mayo and Mike Conley Jr. He symbolized a new era of Grizzlies basketball and became the team’s anointed savior when Pau Gasol was traded. These aren’t things that I’m just saying now, I’ve said this in this space for almost a year now.Īs a fan, and a fan only, I’m sad to see Rudy go.
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When he was informed that he didn’t make the team, he sulked through about three weeks of games before he hurt his shoulder and would eventually be shut down for the season. In his defense, he was finally taking off in 2010-2011 and probably deserved to make the All-Star Game. Second, Gay just never got it all put together in Memphis. First of all, I wish you were an NBA General Manager with a promising young small forward on a rookie deal because you could have had him a long time ago. You may wonder why the Grizzlies would give away one of the great young stars in the game. Now, if you don’t watch the Grizzlies every night, you may be panicking about this deal. Olympic team member who will immediately assume Gay’s spot in the starting lineup. On Wednesday afternoon, the Grizzlies traded Rudy Gay to the Toronto Raptors in a three-way deal that netted them Tayshaun Prince, Austin Daye and Ed Davis. I’m 5’9).Īfter the first round exit, the calls to trade Rudy grew louder and when the team was finally sold late in 2012, the writing was on the wall. He did all of that while being guarded by a motley crew of Clipper defenders ranging from Caron Butler (with a broken arm), Randy Foye (6’3 at the tallest) or Chris Paul (probably shorter than me.
RUDY GAY TRADE THUNDER SERIES
Last year, the Grizzlies had a much better regular season, but bowed out in the first round of the playoffs as Gay kept shooting and missing, hitting 42% of his shots in the seven game series and 1.4 assists. If they closed out game 4 against the Thunder at home, I’m not sure the Grizzlies would have blown a 3-1 series lead, barring an injury.
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Were the Grizzlies better without him? Why did the team emerge and play much more efficiently without the athletic swingman on the floor? It’s not even a reach to pretend that the Grizzlies were literally one break away from the Western Conference Finals. When the Grizzlies pushed the Oklahoma City Thunder to 7 games in the second round, the whispers began.