A Case Study in N.B.A. Expectations: Rudy Gay
When Rudy Gay re-signed with Memphis this summer, he wasn’t worth the five years and $80 million that the Grizzlies gifted him. Gay wasn’t productive enough to warrant such a lavish deal, and the combination of contract length and value seemed like certain salary cap doom for the Grizzlies.
Things have changed. Gay is much improved. The characteristically inefficient Gay now boasts a 19.5 Player Efficiency Rating (PER), up from a 16.2 mark last season. He significantly bumped each of his shooting percentages, and has become an impressive 3-point marksman after a four-year stretch of being average from beyond the arc. Gay is grabbing rebounds and picking up assists at a higher rate than ever before, leading his team in per-game and per-minute scoring, and boasting all of this offensive improvement without significantly increasing his usage rate.
Gay still isn’t worth five years and $80 million, but his growth this season calls attention to a peculiar aspect of basketball expectations. When Gay signed his new deal with the Grizzlies, he was 23 years old. Yet at 23, Gay’s future was supposedly definite, and many – including yours truly – declared that he would never be as valuable to his team as his newly inked contract suggests. Maybe he never will be, but for now, that’s not the point.
Player development isn’t exactly the N.B.A.’s strong suit, but when did prospects stop growing at 23? At that age, Pau Gasol was a “soft” Euro big man who couldn’t win a playoff game. Chauncey Billups was wasting away on the Nuggets’ bench averaging 8.6 points a game. We knock what Gay is capable of achieving now, but how is anyone to presume what he may or may not be able to accomplish in a few years?
With late blooming no longer allowed in the N.B.A., 23 is the new 30. Those who don’t roar out of the gate are expected to plod along for their career. If a lottery pick doesn’t turn heads in his first season, he’s a disappointment. If he can’t solve his franchise’s problems in Years 2 and 3, he turns into trade bait. If he doesn’t eliminate all of his weaknesses a few years in, his work ethic must be poor. Meanwhile, any player who makes a quick jump toward stardom and catches the spotlight at just the right angle becomes a darling.
The Celtics’ Rajon Rondo is six months younger than Gay. Rondo’s true shooting percentage is the lowest it has been in four years, his rebounding is down, he commits a turnover on over a quarter of his possessions (up from committing a turnover on 19.3 percent of his possessions last season), and yet he’s the player for whom the sky is considered the limit.
Rondo is fantastic, and his playmaking abilities are practically nonpareil, but why is his future progress assumed while Gay -– who is still brimming with athletic potential –- has hit some imaginary wall? Rondo is one of the best point guards in the league, and there’s no question that he’s far superior to Gay. Still, Rondo hasn’t done anything to patch up the biggest weaknesses in his game. He’s as bad from the free throw line, from midrange and from 3-point range as he has been in seasons past. Rondo is far, far more productive than Gay at present, but I find it curious that he’s assumed to improve by leaps and bounds while Gay jogs in place.
Gay hasn’t reshaped his game, but he has incorporated subtle modifications across the board. He has a better grasp of movement and spacing, is more comfortable with his teammates, and is slowly approaching his peak. Gay hasn’t taken a jump; he’s just exhibiting the natural evolution of a young player. At 24, Gay is still just that.
Though Gay is an interesting individual case study of expected growth, he’s not the only player pegged to taper off early in his N.B.A. career. He and every similarly positioned 20-something aren’t done, even if they’re often described as such. Potential’s glow doesn’t illuminate them as it does a promising rookie, but these are players with the capability to improve.
