After Gay was traded from the Grizz to the Toronto Raptors, Memphis went 27-11 and ended up advancing to the Western Conference Finals. Since he was traded from the Memphis Grizzlies in 2012, Rudy Gay has had been on a tumultuous ride that’s seen his reputation treated like the roadkill of each new bump in the road. The Raptors canvassed damn near the entire league in their quest to become the second team in two seasons to dump Rudy Gay well in advance of the trade deadline, according to sources across the NBA.By Gerald Bourguet 8 years ago Follow Tweet They went to every team that made at least some theoretical sense: Detroit, with expiring contracts and at least some need on the wing Milwaukee, with fading postseason ambitions and a massive hole at small forward the Greek Freak isn’t quite ready to fill Cleveland, with a playoff mandate, a GM on shaky ground, and perhaps the worst group of starting wing players in the league and many others.Įveryone said no, and they did so abruptly. This is how far Gay’s value has declined league-wide over the last 18 months.
#RUDY GAY KINGS TOXIC FREE#
I know GMs who say they wouldn’t touch him now in free agency for the midlevel exception. Only one team was left: the Kings, with a new ownership group determined to make a splash and a new GM, Pete D’Alessandro, who worked with Toronto GM Masai Ujiri in Denver. The Kings’ wing rotation is a disaster, even after the recent acquisition of Derrick Williams, who has never resembled an NBA-caliber small forward. The Williams swap and DeMarcus Cousins max-level extension left Sacramento without meaningful projected cap room this summer, putting the Kings in a position where they could plausibly look at Gay’s $19 million player option for 2014-15 and say, “No harm, no foul.” The Raptors were betting Gay would pick up that option given his poor play this season, and dealing Gay allows them to plan with more certainty.Īnd so here we are: The last remaining Rudy Gay suitor has agreed to send four rotation players to Toronto in exchange for Gay and (very tall) salary filler. If you’re even a medium-level NBA fan, you probably know the names of all four players going to Toronto. But don’t be fooled: This is a salary dump. This is not about Patrick Patterson, or Greivis Vasquez, the league’s second-leading assist man last season.
#RUDY GAY KINGS TOXIC FULL#
This is about Toronto sloughing off Gay’s endless barrage of midrange bricks and beginning a full teardown - with the potential for a top-five pick in this draft, max-level cap space this summer, and similar space every summer going forward. Here’s the thing: This deal, by itself, may well make the 2013-14 Raptors better.
![rudy gay kings toxic rudy gay kings toxic](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/QUkAAOSwCd9dVcXM/s-l640.jpg)
And that’s why we should expect the Raptors to begin (or continue) gauging the market for both DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry as we approach December 15, after which most free agents who signed over the summer are trade-eligible again. Dwane Casey, the team’s head coach, may also be in trouble, depending on Ujiri’s timetable with the position, per several league sources. The current version of Gay is basically a harmful player. He used 30 percent of Toronto’s possessions with a shot, turnover, or drawn foul - a gargantuan usage rate reserved for the league’s biggest scoring stars. He’s also shooting 38.8 percent for the season. That is a historically rare combination of shot chucking and brick laying.
![rudy gay kings toxic rudy gay kings toxic](https://www.oregonlive.com/resizer/UU5uOvChLCX1aeTRrmy7XVl6oNQ=/1280x0/smart/advancelocal-adapter-image-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/image.oregonlive.com/home/olive-media/width2048/img/nba_impact/photo/rudy-gay-sacramento-kings-e5ff3bb023f98d6a.jpg)
Only three players in league history have used more than 30 percent of their team’s possessions while shooting below 40 percent: Jerry Stackhouse, Baron Davis, and Allen Iverson (twice). Those other guys could at least point to heaps of free throws or solid assist numbers. Gay can point to neither, in part because he has never been an intuitive passer who can read the floor at NBA speed. He has shot the 3-pointer well this season, the one shred of evidence that his fabled vision-improvement surgery might have worked (wink!). He can work as a stretch power forward, though he has shared some of that role this season with Landry Fields (owner of perhaps the most ridiculous contract in the league) and Steve Novak.
![rudy gay kings toxic rudy gay kings toxic](https://www.nba.com/kings/sites/kings/files/rudyinjury_4.jpg)
He’s long, and when he’s engaged, he can be an above-average defender.