The Kings have officially acquired Rudy Gay from the Raptors along with Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy, Toronto announced via press release. Greivis Vasquez, John Salmons, Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes are headed north of the border. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports originally reported last night that the swap would take place (Twitter links).
“We thank Rudy, Aaron and Quincy for their time here. They were great professionals and strong community ambassadors of the Raptors,” Toronto GM Masai Ujiri said in a statement. “The trade gives us good flexibility and more certainty as we plan for our future.”
The Kings plan on using Gay as a stretch-four and see Gay and the recently-acquired Derrick Williams as being capable of guarding either forward position, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports tweets. With Williams and Gay, the Kings are buying low on two notable names that have depreciated in the eyes of many evaluators.
“We’re excited to welcome these additions to our team,” Sacramento GM Pete D’Alessandro said, according to a release from the Kings. “In Rudy we’ve acquired one of the league’s proven scorers while Aaron and Quincy provide size and depth in our frontcourt. We also appreciate the contributions and efforts that John, Chuck, Greivis and Patrick made to the Kings organization. We all wish them the very best moving forward.”
Gay, 27, boasts career averages of 18.0 PPG and 5.9 RPG, but newer metrics such as PER have shown that his efficiency leaves much to be desired. It’s not just fans and front office execs that have taken notice, either. After a November game in which the small forward took 37 shots and scored 29 points, LeBron James remarked that he would put up 60 points “easy” if he attempted such a gaudy number of shots.
While the Kings gain at athletic wing in Gay, the Raptors free up a good amount of money for 2015 and gain a couple of interesting pieces along the way as well. As for the financial part of things, the only guaranteed 2015 money that came back in the deal is Hayes’ $5.9MM contract. Beyond that, they can clear $14.5MM by declining options/qualifying offers for Vasquez, Salmons, and Patterson.
Last month, it was reported that Ujiri was exploring trade options for Gay and others with Jonas Valanciunas, 2011′s fifth overall pick, the only real untouchable of the bunch. Gay was the team’s most obvious chip since he’s still capable of being a top scorer for a team and could be a rental since he has a player option for 2014/15 that he could turn down in favor of a longer deal. With a $17.89MM salary, however, finding a home for Gay hasn’t been easy. Gay’s player option for 2014/15 is worth $19.2MM.
Vasquez, 27 in January, took a major step forward with the Pelicans last season when he put up career best averages of 13.9 PPG and 9 APG. Today’s news means that Vasquez has now worn three different jerseys in this calendar year – the guard came to Sacramento in July as a part of the three-way Tyreke Evans deal. While Vasquez has fans in the Kings front office, they clearly felt that this was a trade they had to make to get a dominant wing. It also has the added benefit of clearing up the Kings’ backcourt logjam.
Patterson, 24, is also in his third career trade with today’s deal. The power forward has had an up-and-down career through Houston and Sacramento and hasn’t been off to a blazing start this season. Patterson is putting up just 6.9 PPG and 5.8 RPG while shooting 41% from the floor.
Salmons, 33, has been seeing almost 25 minutes per contest with the Kings this season but is putting up some of his weakest per 36 minutes averages of his career. Only $1MM of Salmons’ $7MM salary in 2014/15 is guaranteed and it’s a safe bet that he’ll be let go. Acy, 23, hasn’t seen much burn this season, playing 8.7 minutes per contest across seven games.
More than three-quarters of Hoops Rumors readers said that they expected Gay to be traded before the deadline. It certainly helped that Ujiri and D’Alessandro have a history after working together in Denver. By trading Andrea Bargnani and Gay, Ujiri has cleared ~$20MM off of the books next season.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
Sacramento will send John Salmons, Vasquez, Patterson and Hayes to the Raptors, sources tell Yahoo Sports. Per Adrian Wojnarowski
Honestly I like this trade for the Kings. Give up nothing, possibly get something. Gay has one year left, worst case he plays out next season and they have a crap load of cap space
I agree to be honest it’s a pretty fair deal for both teams really although now the Raptors will probably have to figure out their forward rotation now because they have to many of them (plus Vasquez won’t be starting in Toronto which kinda hurts his value).
Vazquez is pretty good…Gay is shooting 38% AFTER eye surgery and isn’t going to make a team like the Kings sudden contenders. No idea why Sacramento would go for this knowing Toronto basically would’ve taken anything just to get rid of Gays contract.
I knew this was going to happen…I finally was able to afford seats to a Heat game for the first time in years. Had the choice between only a couple of different teams and chose Toronto b/c of the athletic wings…I was just worried about them trading Gay before that game, and of course…W/e at least I wont miss out on this era of Heat basketball. I would have been really disappointed to not get to even 1 game during it. Why cant prices be what they were in 2003-2004? (obviously I know why. I’m just lamenting here) I went to playoff games in the lower bowl for $20-25 a piece and now that doesnt even get you near the building for a preseason game…
Imagine how us Knicks fans feel. Back in 03-04 tickets were similarly priced to what they are now (i.e. insane). I bought tickets back in the terrible Eddy Curry/Jerome James days and spent $50 each…for nosebleeds.
The NBA (and NFL for that matter) have completely priced us regular/real fans out.
its at least $80 (if you get lucky) to even get a chance at a Heat ticket nowadays…
What a terrible sentence… Sacramento will send John Salmons, Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, and Chuck Hayes are headed north of the border.
I like this trade for both teams. The player option is interesting. I like Sac getting more athletic. I hate that they gave up Vasquez, but he’s the attraction to send Gay. I think Gay needs a good PG to feed him in the right spots so he dribbles and thinks less. This allows Isiah Thomas to start which is great for Sacramento. They now have Cousins, Gay, Williams, Mclemore, and Thomas. That’s an improvement to me. As for Toronto, they save money and Vasquez should help take pressure off Derozan. Patterson is good for the bench. And Chuck Hayes can d and rebound. It’s fair deal. The only downside is Gay making almost 20mil next year. Although I do see him improving playing with Cousins and Thomas
Don’t get it from the Kings perspective. They need to tank again this year to get a high lottery pick in next years draft. Acquiring Gay (they could have easily done it next offseason) will “help” the kings win a few more games this year lowering the chances of obtaining another piece to a Thomas/Mclemore/Cousins core…..don’t get this at all
have to see how this play out to say if it was a bad trade or not
So the Kings see Gay as a stretch 4. But he can’t shoot.