With an important CBA negotiation meeting on-tap today that could point the way toward a potential deal, I continue my position-by-position look at the Grizzlies’ current roster with a look at the small forward position.
Rudy Gay
Regular Season: 39.9 mpg, 19.8 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 2.8 apg, 1.69 spg, 1.07 bpg, 2.5 tpg, 17.9 PER, 47fg%, 81ft%, 40 3p% (2.7 att)
Age: 25
Contract Status: $15 million on second-year of five-year contract.
When Rudy Gay went down with a shoulder injury on February 15th, he was enjoying the best season of his five-year career. Was it The Leap? No. But Gay’s improved play was composed of small but meaningful across-the-board improvements. He notched career-best shooting percentages from the floor (mostly by finishing better at the rim), the free-throw line, and the three-point line. His blocks and steals were up, which was only the start of his significant in-season defensive improvement. His assist rate was up sharply. And at the precise moment that Evan Turner ripped Gay’s left shoulder from its socket, Gay was displaying the kind of balanced, focused game that will maximize his impact on this team — scoring down slightly, in partial deference to the team’s post game, but rebounds and assists and defensive focus at a career apex.
In Gay’s final 15 games before his injury:
17.5 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 3.5 apg, 1.0 bpg, 1.5 spg
Team record: 11-4
It was this middle stretch of the season — after Tony Allen entered the rotation and before Gay was injured — when the Grizzlies played their best basketball, something that either went unnoticed or forgotten when the team held onto a playoff spot and made a post-season run without Gay. Extend back to early December, when Allen got in the rotation for good, and the Grizzlies were on a 23-12 run when Gay went down, including 10-5 against eventual playoff teams. That .657 winning percentage would have been the 8th best in the league over the full season.
So the notion that the Grizzlies were better without Gay was nonsense, something that should have been made clear in the back half of the series against the Thunder, when the Grizzlies were shooting under 40% every game and couldn’t get any consistent perimeter offense, when the Thunder defense was begging Sam Young and Tony Allen to shoot the ball. And the idea that it will be difficult to integrated Gay back into an offense with Zach Randolph as the top option is also odd — Randolph was the leading scorer and an all-star-level performer alongside Gay for a year and a half before Gay’s injury.
