Rudy Gay can’t be stopped.
“He doesn’t yet realize it but he is unstoppable… It is going to take an NBA superstar to lock him up.”
- Jim Calhoun head coach at the University of Connecticut
Coach Calhoun makes it a habit of molding his young players into future pro superstars. In June of 2006, his hard work paid off when the University of Connecticut became the first school in the history to have five players selected in the first two rounds of the NBA draft. Rudy Gay was one of them.
Coming out of Baltimore in 2004, Rudy Gay made an immediate impact at UConn. At 6’8, with the wingspan of a 7’3 body and fast feet, he gave opponents fits. Coaches would put a smaller player on him to try and stop him off the dribble, but he’d use his long arms to go over defenders. They’d try to get a bigger man to guard him in the post, but he’d dance around them for easy buckets. Simply put, he was a matchup nightmare.
As a freshman, he averaged 11.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and nearly 2 blocks a game, was named conference freshman of the year, and had some magazines calling him the nation’s best first year player. It was no surprise then that he was selected to represent the USA in the 2005 Under-21 World Championships, where he averaged over 10 points a game in the tournament.
In his second year, Gay’s game exploded. Behind his 15 points and 6 rebounds a game, he led UConn to a 30-3 record, was a first-team All-American and was one of four finalists for the Naismith Award.
With the NBA beckoning, he left college early and entered the 2006 draft as one of the top prospects, but come draft day, he got an unfortunate surprise. Despite being a top college player, he had to wait until the 8th pick to be selected. But he only used that snub to his motivate himself, “I’m going to make every one of the teams pay that passed on me.”
In his rookie season with Memphis, Gay put together a solid season averaging 10.8 points and 4.5 rebounds a game playing as a swingman. As the season progressed he became a starter, finishing the season with 43 starts.
But in his second season in the league Gay has established himself as one of the NBA’s rising stars. Whether in the half-court setup or streaking down the wings on the break, he has become an offensive force to be reckoned with, and as of 11/29/2007, he has upped his scoring average to 17.1 points, becoming the Grizzlies’ leading scorer.
Coach Calhoun should be proud. The values and skills he instilled in Rudy have translated all the way to the highlight reels. With the way Rudy Gay is playing these days, it’s going to take more than just a superstar to stop his game.
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