@movernie
Personally, when Rudy Gay was playing with the Memphis Grizzlies, I really like his game. And after he got traded to the Toronto Raptors, I thought he played well in this first year with the Raptors and showed the type of leadership the Raptors need at the time when Bargnani was being booed and when other players were searching for a team leader who was willing to take the last shot when the game was on the line.
However, things changed ever since the start of this early NBA Raptors season. I thought Rudy Gay wasn’t really a good fit with the team. He and DeMar DeRozan doesn’t seem to jell into the 1-2 punch that Raptorsfans would have envisioned. Rudy started to get lots of touches but weren’t effectively turned those touches into effective offensive plays. Very often, I noticed Rudy tended to run the ball up the court alot when it’s supposed to be the point guard’s job. Worst, whenever Rudy wanted to bring up the ball, he didn’t have the ball handling skills to break down the defense, most often, the defenders tapped the ball and stole the ball off Gay far too many times, leading to turnovers and easy buckets by the opponents. Rudy also getting lazy and settled for difficult jump shots and fade-aways. With the emergence of DeMar DeRozan and his ever increasing superstar stats, it makes sense to let Rudy Gay go.
Here is the breakdown of the proposed Raptors/Kings trade:
To Raptors:
PG – Greivis Vasquez ($2.5M USD)
SG – John Salmons ($8.5M USD)
PF – Patrick Patterson ($2.1M USD)
PF – Chuck Hayes ($5.25 USD)
Rounded ($18M Total)
To Kings:
SF – Rudy Gay ($15M USD)
PF – Quincy Acy ($665,000 USD)
C – Aaron Gray ($2.5M USD)
Rounded ($18M Total)
With all these factors in, I think tonight’s trade involving the Toronto Raptors and the Sacramento Kings is a great trade for the Raptors. They got rid of Rudy Gay who won’t be in the long-term vision of Raptors GM Mansai Urijri’s game plan. This trade was a cap space dump, saving Toronto around $13 Million of cap space to sign a free agent or two (especially this coming summer, the free agents are high quality) in the summer of 2014.
Quincy Acy got little playing time from Coach Casey despite Ed Davis was traded to the Grizzlies last year. Even when Andrea Bargnani got traded, Acy didn’t got any more playing time this year. Same to veteran Aaron Gray, this year, Coach Casey hardly played him even when there aren’t many front court players on the roster this year.
I like the players coming back to Toronto, they are a bunch of players with veteran experience and they are great backups who can also spot-starts. Kyle Lowry is still the starting point guard but his health is always a question mark, with this trade, Greivis Vasquez is a serviceable backup point guard and he can spot-start if Lowry is injured. Furthermore, he is a major upgrade than the inefficient Dwight Bycks who maybe waived as Toronto currently have 16 players on the roster after this deal (league roster is at 15).
I considered Chuck Hayes as the veteran version of Quincy Acy, who is undersized but can rebound and makes a big presence in the paint. The hidden gem player that I would like to flourish under the Raptors system is Patrick Patterson. He is young, solid Power Forward size and he can score and rebound. He has a low salary that he should be in the long-term plans with the Raptors. If he get minutes, he may flourish and be the diamond-in-the-rough in this deal.
John Salmons is a good shooting guard with great offensive skills. He was once the player former GM Raptors Bryan Colganelo’s free agent signing until he bailed out and Bryan forced to go with plan B to sign Fred Jones. The circle of life continues for John in the NBA league, playing for quite a number of teams in his career. I would have preferred to see the Raptors trying to get Jimmer Fredette instead of Salmons as I want to see if Fredette can resurrect his college glory days. Anyhow, John Salmons will be a good starting Small Forward or the 6th man coming off the bench.
Overall, I like this trade. I think it benefits the Toronto Raptors in many different ways. Raptors GM Mansai Urijri was able to find a trading partner who would take on the high price tag of Rudy Gay off his ledger. The new look Raptors can either improve the team and win more games for the playoffs or if they don’t win, it’s a great way to tank the season and trying their chances on getting Andrew Wiggins or other high prized players in the draft. Even better, this trade free up cap salary space, which means, Raptors GM can go shopping in the deep pool of high quality free agent to help the team. So…in many different angles, this is a GREAT day for the Toronto Raptors and the Raptorsfans!
MoVernie Breakdown Analysis:
1) Raptors got rid of Rudy Gay’s high price contract this year and next year especially Rudy isn’t effective on the team this year
2) Raptors free up cap space to sign deep pool of high quality free agents
3) Raptors can compete for playoffs with these new players and if they don’t, they can tank and try to get high prized draftpicks such as Andrew Wiggins
4) If Lowry gets injured, Vasquez is a capable point guard, major upgrade from ineffective Dwight Bycks
Go Raptors Go!
What do you think of this trade? Do you like it or hate it? Tell me your thoughts!
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