I've been going back and forth on this trade all day, and for me, it raises questions about the luxury tax, Rudy Gay, and Hollinger.
It was an inevitability that the Grizzlies would make a trade before the deadline to get under the luxury tax. We knew it'd essentially be a cap dump, whether it was Rudy Gay or a package of reserves. However, the mere fact that this was an "inevitability" makes me question not only the qualifications for ownership of small market teams but also the luxury tax in general. One of the objectives of a luxury tax is to protect the small market teams, but at the end of the day, it really just winds up marginalizing them.
With the dump being inevitable though, I think it was an interesting move to dump a package of reserves and a draft pick (with very favorable conditions for the Cavs) rather than dumping Gay. While Rudy Gay leads the team in scoring, he's shooting 41.3% (third worst in the league for players over 250 FG's), only has a 1.03 A/TO ratio, and is just a selfish black-hole of a player on the court in general. He's essentially addition by subtraction, which begs the question, why did the "stats guy," John Hollinger not trade him instead? Was Rudy Gay really untradable? Did every single team in the NBA turn down Rudy Gay's albatross of a contract?
And on the subject of Hollinger, this was the first disturbing move of a new era in Memphis. The cap dump is disturbing enough, but apparently John Hollinger actually has long-term plans for Leuer with the organization, based on his advanced metrics, despite the fact that inserting him into the line-up is probably going to detract from the team's chemistry and defensive mantra. I don't like the way this team's going, with an owner that's looking to cut corners to pinch pennies and a GM who bases his decision making on algorithms.
