Trade Grade: Toronto send Gay to the Sacramento in seven man deal

Rudy Gay is traded for the second time in a year.

Early Sunday evening Adrian Wojinowki dropped a signature #WojBomb as news broke across the NBA Twitterverse that the Toronto Raptors and Sacramento Kings were in advanced talks over a trade centred around Rudy Gay. This quickly got both sets of fans talking as they tried to work out who exactly was involved in the deal.

We have all the details and analysis of the trade right here:

Toronto: B+

The Raptors finally rid themselves of Rudy Gay’s overpriced contract  ($38 million 2 years) which behind Amare Stoudamire and Joe Johnson’s is one of the worst in the league. This is the second overpaid contract Tornoto General Manager Masai Ujiri has successfully moved after sending Bargnani to New York in the off season. Some believe that this is Toronto’s signal they are going into total #TankForWiggins mode, but bizarrely some believe quite the opposite. Gay has been shooting under 40% this year and Toronto fans have become frustrated by his poor shot selection. Gay has been taking a high percentage of long two pointers (36.7% of his offence) many of which have been taken after dribbling at the top of the key for long periods of the shot clock. The long two pointer is the most inefficient shot in the NBA so you can understand why Toronto fans have lost their patience with Gay.

Like previously mentioned, some people actually believe this trade will improve them, Vasquez has much better vision than Kyle Lowry and will improve the play of talented big man Jonas Valancunis. Patrick Patterson will also bring better spacing to Toronto after the Amir Johnson shooting threes experiment has seemingly failed (22.7%).

Hayes is the only player coming to Toronto who’s contract is on the books for next season with Patterson and Vasquez both becoming restricted free agents and Salmons expiring. This gives the Raptors a good amount of flexibility as they have the upper hand if they wanted to re-sign either of them. Hayes has a pretty big contract for some average production, but it pales in comparison to Rudy Gay’s so Toronto fans will be happy.

Sacramento Kings: C-

Gay’s deal does have a player option for the 2014-15 season, but there is very little chance he opts out due to the new CBA agreement, but more importantly his subpar play. In essence, the Kings have invested in two years of Rudy Gay, they obviously believe that he can be a key piece in taking the Kings back to the playoffs for the first time since 2006. For the last two years the Kings have struggled with a very muddled roster containing a lot of similar players who simply didn’t complement each other. With this trade they got rid of a lot of drift wood, with Vasquez being the only real contributor of the players who got traded away. However, ask Sacramento fans about this and they will simply be happy that Isiah Thomas is going to be given the chance to run the team. Thomas showed why Kings fans were excited to see him get his opportunity last night with 24 points and 12 assists and a big win over the Dallas Mavericks. In Gay, the Kings have got back a potential game changer who is just about as dynamic as any wing in the league. The success of this trade really depends on Rudy Gay’s ability to play team first basketball and become a more efficient player, it will be interesting to see if he is happy sacrificing his own numbers for the team. You could argue that putting another Alpha dog next to Cousins could risk upsetting the volatile big man, with so much invested in Cousins I believe that Gay will be a second option on offense.

The other players on their way to Sacramento are Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray. Believe it or not Raptors fans were genuinely more upset about losing Acy than Rudy Gay. Acy is an undersized power forward (6ft 7inc) who was selected with the 37^th pick in the 2012 draft out of Baylor, despite not having much playing time in his career so far he has shown potential to be a good gritty, defensive minded big man. Acy is one of those guys fans love, he plays with his heart on his sleeve and always brings a strong defensive energy to the floor. Gray is a high basketball IQ big man who doesn’t see a lot of playing time. Expect his DNPs to rise in Sacramento where he will be playing behind Cousins, Jason Thompson (who apparently is available). So the big question is, does adding Gay to the Kings roster make them a playoff team? In the West no, the Kings however still appear to be active in the trade market so don’t be surprised to see they try to add a third big name player. However, until that happens this team is still not good enough to make the playoffs and have just decreased the likelihood of a top 5 pick.

*Random Fact* – This is Greveis Vasquez’s 4^th team since being drafted in 2010. Vasquez was drafted in Memphis but has subsequently been moved to New Orleans, Sacramento and now Toronto.