Three-Year Plan: Grizzlies Draft Rudy Gay.

(This is the first part of a series that details Michael Heisley’s Three-Year Plan to totally rebuild the Memphis Grizzlies. The intro can be found here: Michael Heisley And The Three-Year Plan.)

Come with me for a second, if you will. It’s the night of the NBA Draft in 2006 and nobody’s quite sure what to make of anything. Andrea Bargnani had just went first to the Toronto Raptors and the guy that most people thought was the slam-dunk first overall pick was falling fast after an up-and-down season in college and an iffy showing in the NCAA Tournament.

Still, Rudy Gay couldn’t really fall out of the top 5 picks of the draft, right?

When he did, the Memphis Grizzlies decided to act and traded a cornerstone of their three consecutive playoff teams to obtain him. Shane Battier was dealt to Houston for the #8 pick and Stromile Swift as the Grizzlies sought to move past the first-round for the first time in franchise history.

Despite their regular season success, the Grizzlies had set a new NBA record for futility in the playoffs, having lost their first 12 consecutive playoff games. Most teams don’t make the leap from being swept in the first round to a championship contender overnight, so the Grizzlies felt like they had to do something.

Gay was a guy that everyone had pointed to that had star potential, but had never been able to put his talents together. At UConn, he looked great some days and struggled others. He never seemed like he felt like being The Man, just a man. He had no problem being just another good player, but the problem with that mindset is that he was blessed with the total package.

The total package isn’t handed out to everyone which means that when you get it you must take advantage of it. LeBron James and Kevin Durant were gifted it and have made the most of it. Dwight Howard has as well. The jury’s still out on Carmelo Anthony, but nobody can deny he’s a great player.

On the other side, you have guys that wasted or are wasting their potential just as frequently. Everyone thought that Michael Beasley was the best player in a draft that featured Derrick Rose. Hasheem Thabeet went second in an actual NBA Draft (we’ll get there) and Tyrus Thomas was traded for LaMarcus Aldridge. All of them either didn’t have the mental makeup, or drive to be a great player, or both.

At this point, you have to put Gay closer to that second group than you would the first one, right? He’s certainly better than Beasley, Thabeet (ugh) and Thomas, but he’s not even close to the other guys. Gay has been an overpaid underachiever for most of his career.

However, the Grizzlies didn’t know that at the time, even if there were several red flags during his time with the Huskies. Gay was viewed as a future All-Star, the rare mix of athleticism and length that you search for for years was now falling to 8th in the draft.

Besides, it’s not like the Grizzlies were breaking up a powerhouse or anything. Making the playoffs is nice, but getting swept all three years you make it? Where’s the fun in that? If the ultimate goal is winning a championship (and that’s supposedly everyone’s goal) then you can’t get swept three years in the first round. At some point, you have to break through and make that step forward.

Trading for Gay was a step in the right direction, regardless of how his career in Memphis ultimately goes. The Grizzlies were built on too many role players and their best player was never really a true first option, even if he was almost overqualified to be a second option. Moving fan favorite Battier ruffled a few feathers around the city, especially with casual fans, but raised the Grizzlies’ ceiling from “playoff team” to “second round team.” It may not seem like a large leap, but it was.

The trade also signified that the Grizzlies were willing to admit when things were broken, no small task in the world of the big ego NBA owner. Michael Heisley is a competitive guy and getting swept three straight years didn’t sit with him too well at all. He wanted to win a championship, but he knew to do that, you had to advance in the playoffs. If that meant taking a small step back to be better moving forward, so be it. It had to be done, especially if a championship is the goal.

The last reason the Gay trade was a good gamble reflects directly upon you at home reading this article. Pau Gasol was a great player, and still is to this day, even though he’s hitting the tail end of his prime. Gasol is probably still the greatest player in franchise history. He was Memphis’ first All-Star, led the Grizzlies to their first playoff series, so on and so forth.

However, as good as Gasol was he never resonated with the fans like Gay can. Gasol was always kind of moody and displaced from Memphis where Gay seems to be a loyal, outgoing guy. Gay can be moody too (some of the beat writers got to calling him ‘Moody Gay’ during the past season) but he seems to like Memphis and spends a lot of time here and just seems generally at home around town.

Winning cures a lot of things, and it’d be hard to argue that the Grizzlies have been much better with Gay than they have Gasol, even if the 2011 playoff run was made without Gay.

The real tragedy is that the Gay-Gasol era never got off of the ground in Memphis. Gay’s rookie season saw Gasol miss a majority of the year that he sustained while playing overseas with the Spanish National Team. By the time he returned, the Grizzlies were finishing up a disappointing season. During the 2007 off-season, Gasol became disgruntled and it seemed like his time in Memphis was numbered. He never even played a full season with Gay.

Could they have become the NBA’s best young duo with some patience? Had Gasol’s relationship with the fans and front office not deteriorated to that breaking point in 2007, could it have been salvageable? Remember, the Grizzlies drafted Mike Conley Jr. in 2007 and he played with Gasol and Gay at the same time. Would the Grizzlies have still made the trade for Zach Randolph in 2009 or maybe even sooner?

These are all great questions that we’ll have to answer at another time, and if you know me, they will be answered, but for now, it’s just the first stop in Michael Heisley’s vaunted Three-Year Plan to rebuild the Grizzlies. Some argue whether the Gay trade was part of the plan at all, but it was a crucial step nonetheless. It was more of a long term move than a short term one as the Lakers would make three straight Finals immediately after the trade and the Grizzlies struggling through some growing pains, but finally seeing that plan come to fruition in 2011.

For anyone who thought that the Pau Gasol trade kick-started the Three-Year Plan, then you haven’t been paying attention. The Grizzlies were getting ready to blow it up and start over in the summer of 2006, a year and a half before moving Gasol.