Rudy gay jersey number in memphis
Some are still trying to evolve, but finding it difficult (hello, Carmelo Anthony).Īt age 28, married and with a baby boy arriving last spring, Gay said it was time to grow up-on and off the court. Others never figure it out - Allen Iverson, Steve Francis, Stephon Marbury -and find their careers cut short, unfulfilled. Some evolve over time, as Paul Pierce did in Boston. They arrive with grand ambitions, oversized egos and selfish habits born in the warped culture of the Amateur Athletic Union. It's a familiar story arc for the modern NBA star, particularly the big-time scorers. "I said, 'You're finally coming,'" Hollins said, adding with a chuckle, "'All that I said didn't go to waste.'" When Hollins saw Gay this summer at the wedding for Grizzlies guard Mike Conley, he approached him like a proud father. "He's making plays for people that he always had the ability to make, but he's not feeling the pressure that he has to go and make the play for Rudy Gay." "I think his game is so much more mature now," said Brooklyn Nets coach Lionel Hollins, who coached Gay for most of his career in Memphis. 566 -easily a career best, and a figure he should reach again once Cousins is back on the court, as he provides everyone more room to operate.Īnd amid this newfound dedication to passing and smarter shot selection, Gay is also averaging a career high in scoring at 21.1 points per game.
#RUDY GAY JERSEY NUMBER IN MEMPHIS FREE#
Gay's true shooting percentage, which accounts for two-pointers, three-pointers and free throws, was a stout. He is earning a career-best 6.3 free throws per game, a sure indicator he no longer settles for lazy jumpers.Ī recent shooting bender, precipitated by Cousins' absence and the Kings' desperation, has eroded Gay's efficiency, but consider this snapshot: As of a week ago, his field-goal percentage was a crisp. Gay is averaging a career-high 4.7 assists per game, more than double his average in his first eight seasons. Cousins is due back soon, Ben McLemore has broken out as a scorer and Gay is in the midst of a midcareer transformation from ball-stopping gunner to team-first star. There are shards of a silver lining here, however. Coaches had been preaching these ideals since the moment Gay entered the league in 2006 but, like many headstrong young stars, he wasn't ready to heed them. The solution wasn't complicated: Move the ball. I had to figure out what I could do to be better, just be better altogether." "It was just kind of like a shock to my system," Gay told Bleacher Report after a recent practice at the Kings' suburban training center. If there ever was a moment for earnest reflection, this was it. He had been branded "inefficient"-toxic in an analytics-driven era.Īnd so Gay was sent trekking across the continent, packing and unpacking and repacking. These things aren't supposed to happen to a scoring star with a max contract.īut Gay had become known as something else: a "volume" shooter-an overpriced gunner whose deficiencies had been laid bare by advanced metrics. Two trades in 314 days, each one sending Gay further down the NBA power rankings, further from his comfort zone, further into the unknown. He was sent to Sacramento, an even more muddled situation with a woebegone franchise. Eleven months later, Toronto gave up on Rudy Gay, too.