Would Roy go Numero Uno

[magicfan4life05]

if the 2006 draft was redone?

I love this man's game, he's so good, and we all know about his character, leadership, and intangibles, but besides that hes a amazing baller....

[Blazing_royale]

i don't see y not, u got two wuss bigs and a stromile swift clone as the top 3 bigs in this draft.

[dockingsched]

between him and aldridge.

[Milkdud]

I'd make it a 3 player race with Gay, LA and Roy. Assuming the Raps have the #1 still I'd think they would have to take either Roy or Gay since they have Bosh at the PF.

[Farsi Man]

between him and aldridge.

lol Bulls got owned.

[Spykes]

i don't see y not, u got two wuss bigs and a stromile swift clone as the top 3 bigs in this draft.

Aldridge a "big wuss"? Clearly you've never seen him play.

Anyhow, Milkdud hit this one on the head. You could make an argument for either Roy, Aldridge and Gay to go #1 in the 06 draft. Personally, I think the Raptors would have been better off taking any 3 of those guys. Bosh and Aldridge could have made a nice PF/C combo. C isn't Aldridge's natural position, but he played it effectively alongside Randolph last season and would have likely done fine alongside Bosh. However, Roy and Gay also would have been fantastic fits. Roy probably would have been the best fit for them since he's so good at creating for others. It would have made Bosh's job a lot easier and he likely wouldn't be having trouble trusting him teammates as is right now.

And not to pile on, but Farsi is right, the Bulls definitely crapped out in the 06 draft. Although, it happens to every team. The Blazers made a far more egregious error the prior year when they passed on both Chris Paul and Deron Williams to pick Martell Webster. Paul is a strong MVP candidate in only his 3rd season...

[TheSheriff]

I thought he was the best player on draft day and so far nothing has changed my opinion.

[Mr. Savage]

Easily.

Roy has shown to be a playmaker and to be a franchise player you'll have to be a playmaker. Scary to think he is only in his 2nd year.

[ponder276]

He's the best player drafted in 2006 right now, but he's also two years older than Rudy. Rudy is not as polished as Roy, but is the superior athlete, and Rudy already scores slightly more at slightly higher percentages. Even though Rudy lacks Roy's leadership and playmaking ability, and is definitely not the winner that Roy is at this point in his career, he probably does have more upside, so I could see taking Rudy over Roy.
LMA is up there too, but his game is pretty similar to Bosh's, so I think the Raps would rather have Rudy or Roy (Roy for right now, but MAYBE Rudy for the future, although Roy could easily end up being the better player in the future as well).

[Cammo101]

1. Aldridge
2. Gay
3. Roy

Aldridge and Gay still have too much upside to go with their improving play.

[NO-KG-AI]

I would still take Gay, especially for Toronto.

[carrottop12]

Imagine Roy in a line up with Bosh and Calderon. That is a perfect fit. Gay could easy go in that line up and be great as well.

Pff at Bargnani, that guy sucks. How many #1 draft picks get worse in all but one category in their second season in the league? And that category he went from .8 assists per game to 1.2. What a joker.

Especially when you have a guy behind you putting up 20/6/2, another guy putting up 19/5/5 and another guy putting up nearly 18/7/2/1.

And he has the audacity to get worse from one season to the next. Give me a break.

And don't even get me started on the Bulls my god.

[Jemini80]

Aldridge is Kurt Thomas v2.0. A jump shooter with a slight mean streak in him.

Gay would go #1. Gay should have gone #1 in the first place. I don't get how players always fall when they clearly should be taken in the top 3. Gay last year, and Brandon Wright this year.

I love Roy, but Gay's upside is just off the charts. He is still only 21 I believe.

[sabi]

-= original quote snipped =-



lol Bulls got owned.

[celticfan42487]

Gay had rumours of a very poor work ethic and you don't want to draft someone with a lack of heart to fulfill that potential.

It really depends who would of been choosing. Aldridge,Gay,Roy are all in the same field enough that it would be based on what your team needs.

If you are drafting #1 though it's likely you'd take either Roy or Gay.

[Harry Palmer]

Given that he is over two years younger, and putting up comparable if not better numbers, I'd say Gay goes first. I think people are actually somewhat unaware how good Gay's play has been.

Gay: 20.4 pts, 6.2 rebounds, 1.9 assists, .467 fg%, .355 3p%, .791 ft%, 1.4 steals, 1.0 blocks.

Roy: 19.4 pts, 4.8 rebounds, 5.8 assists, .452 fg%, .337 3p%, .759 ft%, 1.0 steals, 0.2 blocks.

Gay is scoring more, scoring more efficiently, shooting better from the field, line, and behind the arc, rebounding better, getting more steals and more blocks.

Roy is getting more assists.

And then imagine how good Gay will be in just over 2 years, when he's as old as Roy is now.

[CBS7]

Man, looks like I knew who all the good players were going to be before the draft.

No joke, my dream draft was to pick Aldridge with #2 and trade up to pick up Roy. And in another scenario I suggested we pick Gay because he was the BPA in my mind even though he didn't fill a need (we had Deng/Noc at SF).

Instead we got a guy who the coach won't play. Sefolosha is nice, though. Here's to hoping TT will put it all together.

[conleyorbust]

Before the draft everyone said Gay had the most potential, he also had the highest probability of not showing up.

Everyone knew that Roy was going to be the best off the bat because he had mad talent and was the oldest guy out there. He also had SERIOUS injury concerns which is what made his stock take the biggest hit.

If you went back and redid every draft, you'd always say the best player should go first (well, fit matters too) so this is basically a comparison between Gay and Roy.

[Harry Palmer]

Before the draft everyone said Gay had the most potential...

Not quite everyone.

Once Colangelo made it clear Bargnani was his choice as top talent (long before the draft) many, many Raps fans took that as gospel, and alternate opinions as borderline sacrilege.

In terms of Gay's supposed character issues, I was always of the opinion that;

A) They were way overblown.
B) Even with them as a consideration, given the lack of great alternatives, he was still the logical choice to gamble on.

But getting back to the character issues, I found at the time that they took two forms, one more understandable than the other.

The first and most understandable, though imo flawed, was the view that he hadn't been sufficiently dominant in his soph season, that his natural talent suggested he was underachieving. While I could sort of see this argument, I think it lead people too far: they underrated what he was doing, failed to account enough for his age, especially relative to teammates, they overlooked how much he was his team's shut-down defender, a role he seemed to take to with relish, and they overlooked how much more his natural talents translated to the pros over the NCAA.

But at least it was understandable.

The one that wasn't was the comparisons with all kinds of other uber-talented swings who had character issues, and somehow, without a single cause other than those associations, Gay was labeled 'soft' and 'lacking heart'.

This in spite of the fact that he relished playing defense, was a serious rebounder, scored a ton of his points in the paint, and was a clutch time performer.

I NEVER understood this one, other than as mentioned people sort of tried to fit him into a 'type', like 'oh, he's one of those soft talented swings' without ever really looking at what the guy actually does.

I DO think he was often somewhat reluctant to take charge of his team's offense in college, to a degree...he was still, as a teen, his team's leading scorer...but given their system, surrounding (often older) talent and his efforts on defense, I found that easily understandable.

[Tiggo Bitties]

Aldridge is Kurt Thomas v2.0. A jump shooter with a slight mean streak in him.

Kurt Thomas' best season out of 12- 14/9/1 bpg

LaMarcus Aldridge in his second season- 18/7.6/1.2 bpg

v2.0 indeed