NBA Trade Rumors: Grizzlies Must Deal Rudy Gay After Disappointing Postseason

The Memphis Grizzlies are one of those teams that are good enough to grind out a decent playoff seeding by playing solid basketball all year, but have absolutely no shot of winning a title.

One way to fix this is to trade Rudy Gay, their underwhelming star that had a relatively poor postseason performance in 2012.

According to Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld, Gay is likely to go on the block this summer and is no longer considered untouchable by the organization.

He is owed approximately $53.7 million over the next three seasons, which is actually a fair price for the 17.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.3 steals and 0.9 blocks he has provided with 45.6 FG%/34.7 3PT%/77.1 FT% shooting splits.

Unfortunately, Gay just hasn’t shown the ability to raise his game when it matters most. His playoff averages were almost identical to his regular season stats, but he failed to raise the bar during a seven game series loss to the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round.

Memphis has already locked Zach Randolph, Mike Conley and Marc Gasol into long-term deals and will be negotiating with O.J. Mayo, Darrell Arthur and Marreese Speights in the near future.  They cannot afford to hold on to Gay and ink those three key role players to new contracts.

They should have plenty of suitors, as per Kennedy:

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The Golden State Warriors, Toronto Raptors, Brooklyn Nets and Orlando Magic are among the teams who would attempt to trade for Gay, according to sources close to the situation.

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All of those teams are looking for solid forwards that can create their own shot and they each have the cap room to absorb Gay’s contract.

If the Grizzlies could get some combination of cap relief and future considerations in return for Gay, they have to pull the trigger. They had their most successful playoff run in postseason history in 2011 without their “best” player and faltered in 2012 with him on the floor.

He’s clearly not the answer for the team and it’s time to part ways.