I’m struggling to understand how Rudy “Not This Guy” Gay, at age 32 (an age where he should be declining), is posting the most efficient season of his career by far. And when I say “by far”, I should actually say “BY FAR” in all caps because he has completely discarded the low-efficiency volume-scoring days of his youth in favor of a style of play that actually helps teams win.
Gay’s effective field goal percentage (a stat whose calculation is incomprehensible to me) is 58.7% this season. His previous high mark in that stat? 51.1% in the 2007-08 season when he was 21 years old. In 2012-13, the year he got traded to the Raptors and immediately instituted a ban on stats in the locker room, his eFG% was .449. His “true shooting percentage” (another stat whose underlying mathematical principles I have attempted to decipher, but cannot) is also a career-best this season by a good five percent.
Here’s what these stats are informing me of: I should have been making Rudy Gay highlight videos for all these years that I wasn’t, and this is the year I shouldn’t be making vids for him. I had it totally backwards. Frickin’ Rudy Gay man.