Rudy Gay: ‘I was inefficient’ as a Toronto Raptor

Rudy Gay was inefficient as a Toronto Raptor. This is not up for debate.

He attempted 17.6 shots per game in Toronto, making just 42.8 percent of the 2-pointers and 41.1 percent of all attempts.

The only remaining question was whether Gay, who’s clearly not too fond of stats, knew he was inefficient as a Raptor, because everyone else already did.

He does.

Gay, via Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun:

“I was inefficient when I was here. I’m not anymore. I was when I was here,” Gay said, declining to provide a reason other than “it could have been a lot of things,” as to why his game was so off.

Announcement: Pro Basketball Talk’s partner FanDuel is hosting a one-day $100,000 Fantasy Basketball league for Friday night’s games. It’s $25 to join and first prize is $15,000. Starts at 7pm ET on Friday. Here’s the FanDuel link.

Gay, to his credit, has flourished with the Kings. The exact source of his transformation is unclear, but given this admission, it really seems he took the statistically based criticism to heart.

At 17.1 and 18.6 in his two partial seasons with the Raptors, Gay’s field-goal attempts per game would have been career highs over any full season. That’s just too much of a load for him.

Reigning in his attempts to 15.5 per game with the Kings, which would be a career low over a full season, Gay has actually increased his scoring average from 19.5 in Toronto to 20.8 in Sacramento.

Taking 2.1 fewer shots per game and scoring 1.3 more points per game – that’s remarkable!

Gay deserves credit for admitting where he went wrong. More importantly, he deserves crediting for fixing it.