Revisiting The Rudy Gay Trade

Rudy Gay has become a great contributor to the Sacramento Kings in the mere season and a half he’s played for Sacramento. I wanted to take a look back at the deal that brought him to the Kings, and see how it holds up for both teams nearly two years after the latest Rudy Gay trade.

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One thing about this deal I like right off of the bat for Sacramento was that they got Gay without having to give up any draft picks. The trade was essentially a salary dump for Toronto–they got a bunch of lesser, easier to dispose of contracts for dumping Gay to the Kings.

I just don’t think it was a very good salary dump on their part. When the Kings had to toss away some contracts this offseason to open up room they were forced to attach pick swaps and a first-round pick in the deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, and they weren’t trading away any players around the caliber of Rudy Gay.

To match his large cap hit, Sacramento did have to give up several players–John Salmons, Chuck Hayes, Greivis Vasquez and Patrick Patterson were all sent north in exchange for Gay, Aaron Gray and the newly re-signed Quincy Acy.

I know the intention for the Raptors was to merely get Gay’s large contract off of their books, but I feel like at some point the quality of the players involved has to matter. If we consider Gray, Salmons and Hayes essential non-factors at this point in time that essentially makes this a two-for-two player trade.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d give up Vasquez and Patterson for Gay and Acy fairly easily every time. Acy and Patterson are both young power forwards with the edge in talent at the moment probably going to Pat-Pat, but even still Rudy Gay just makes more of an impact on a team than any of those guys.

Player	Age	G	MP	FGA	FG%	3PA	3P%	FTA	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Quincy Acy	24	68	18.9	4.9	.459	0.9	.300	1.4	.784	4.4	1.0	0.4	0.3	0.9	2.2	5.9
Rudy Gay	28	68	35.4	16.4	.455	3.2	.359	5.8	.858	5.9	3.7	1.0	0.6	2.7	2.3	21.1
Patrick Patterson	25	81	26.6	6.6	.449	3.5	.371	1.0	.788	5.3	1.9	0.7	0.5	0.7	1.8	8.0
Greivis Vasquez	28	82	24.3	8.8	.408	4.3	.379	0.8	.758	2.6	3.7	0.6	0.1	1.5	2.2	9.5

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/10/2015.

Just looking at all of their per game statistics from last season confirms that. Gay played more minutes per game than any of the rest of them, which obviously inflates his numbers a bit. Still, I used their per game instead of per 36 minutes stats to reflect that Gay has earned a starting job–something neither Vasquez or Patterson did, which I believe should reflect positively on Gay.

Anyway, Gay ended up leading both Raptors in field goal percentage, free-throw percentage, points per game, rebounds per game, steals per game, blocks per game and is tied with Vasquez in assists per game. Not too shabby for a player dumped because of his salary hit.

March 24, 2015; Sacramento, CA, USA; Sacramento Kings forward Rudy Gay (8) shoots the basketball against Philadelphia 76ers forward Jerami Grant (39) during the third quarter at Sleep Train Arena. The Kings defeated the 76ers 107-106. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Another important thing to look at with this trade is how the players on each team are still contributing to the team. Right now out of the four players they received only Patterson is still a member of the Toronto Raptors.

Salmons was traded along with a second-round pick for Lou Williams (who later left the Raptors in free agency), Vasquez was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks for a second-round pick and the rights to the Clippers’ 2017 first-round pick and Hayes played bench minutes for Toronto sparingly over two seasons before signing with the Clippers this offseason.

So I suppose after nearly two years the Rudy Gay trade boils down into the Kings having their scoring forward in Gay, and the Raptors having an extra second-round selection, what will likely be a bottom seven selection in 2017 and Patrick Patterson. Of course the Raptors have had more success in the time since the trade, but still that doesn’t seem like a bad deal for Sacramento by any stretch of the means.

This is one of those rare deals that worked out well for both sides. Patterson, Vasquez and Williams were massive for Toronto in their great regular season last year, so it’s not like the Raptors got nothing out of the parts they got for Gay.

Let’s just hope the Kings can make a regular season run of their own soon–if Gay is a big part of it then this trade was definitely a success for the Sacramento Kings. If he never is a part of winning in Sacramento then it still wasn’t necessarily a bad trade, just another ineffectual move with good intentions.

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