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He was the one whose decision to have box scores removed from the Raptors’ postgame locker room scene this season only strengthened his reputation as someone who eschewed all statistical evidence of his own shortcomings, even as he explained that it was merely a way for the team to focus on winning rather than individual numbers. 11 when he missed 26 of 37 shots in a double-overtime loss to the Houston Rockets and the outrage over his style was re-sparked yet again. He was the one who set the NBA Twitter world afire on Nov. He was the one who hit 50 per cent or more of his shots in a single game just once in 18 tries with the Raptors this season. His recent production, or lack thereof, is the root of all this evil.īefore the seven-player trade happened Sunday in which the Kings gave up four players who weren’t considered part of their future for one who may be (while also getting Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray), he was the one who was shooting 38.8 per cent overall and averaging 19.4 points, 18.6 shots, just 2.2 assists, 7.4 rebounds, a career-high 3.3 turnovers per game. Yet as the 27-year-old Gay is well aware, there’s nothing he can do to change the past. Meanwhile, the league-wide landscape came into play on the perception front too: LeBron James and his all-around game continued to evolve in truly remarkable ways, thereby setting the small forward bar so remarkably high that less-versatile talents like Gay and the New York Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony seemed more subpar with every passing year. Raptors ship Gay to Sacramento in monster tradeĮver since he missed Memphis’ last two months of the regular season and the 2010-11 postseason because of a shoulder injury and the Grizzlies reached the second round without him, people have wondered aloud whether he made his teams better. Gay and his play have become one of basketball’s biggest debates, a water cooler item that was discussed so fervently last season when the Memphis Grizzlies traded him to Toronto in late January and one that never truly stopped when he struggled so mightily with the Raptors. While the endless analysis of Gay’s game is warranted, all this focus on the fact that his season with the Toronto Raptors through 18 games was on the brink of being historically-inefficient and was the continuation of his personal decline, the sheer din of all the dissecting has grown so loud that you wonder if some of the scribes who are tearing him to pieces believe deep down that they could beat him in a game of one-on-one. Indeed, he had a successful debut with the Kings on Friday night, scoring 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting in a 116-107 loss to Phoenix. And no, even with the ultra-negative narrative that surrounds him, he’s not ready to crumble amid all this criticism just yet. He took shots with his Sacramento Kings teammates, making some and missing others but always firing away with a smooth stroke befitting someone who does this for a living. SACRAMENTO- Rudy Gay bounced a basketball inside his new team’s practice facility on Thursday - hundreds of times, in fact, and without dribbling off of his foot even once.