“He’s always been the guy that I’ve talked to about, whether it’s injuries or situations or anything, I always tried to keep in contact with him. We’ve been talking ever since I left the Grizzlies,” Gay said during a news conference Monday. The pair have stayed in constant communication, even after Gay’s trade to the Toronto Raptors in 2013. “Having another guy that went through the same thing I did at the same time - the whole ‘Grit and Grind,’ the way we had to kind of fight and claw for everything to even get noticed as a team and a city - that mentality kind of lives with you and sticks with you,” Conley told the Commercial-Appeal. Now, Conley and Gay, both in their mid-30s, just flew to Las Vegas together to finalize their new contracts with the Utah Jazz, watch some summer league basketball, and get to know their new teammates. For five and a half more seasons, they toiled together to bring the Grizzlies to Western Conference contention.įast-forward to August of 2021. In November of 2007, when they first played an NBA game against the Seattle SuperSonics, Instagram had yet to be founded, no one had yet thought to tweet about Rudy Gay, and the Grizzlies were coming off of a season - Gay’s rookie year - in which they owned the NBA’s worst record.īut the pair worked together, they grew up together, they improved together. While much of the league was waiting to see where James would land before moving ahead accordingly, the Grizzlies did not hesitate to go after their guy.Rudy Gay and Mike Conley first played together 14 years ago, both as young pieces of an upstart Memphis Grizzlies team. The most highly anticipated summer in league history opened early Thursday morning, with James, Chris Bosh, Wade, Amare Stoudemire, Joe Johnson and a host of other big names hitting the market. Mayo - that is being counted on to turn a perennial lottery team into a contender in the powerful Western Conference. The 6-foot-8 Gay averaged 19.6 points and 5.9 rebounds in his fourth season with the Grizzlies last year and is part of a young nucleus - along with Marc Gasol and O.J. Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley vowed to match any deal that Gay was offered on the open market, and ensured those meetings would never take place by offering the 23-year-old rising star more money than any of those other teams could.
The restricted free agent was scheduled to visit the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday and also was lining up meetings with the New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks and Miami Heat. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal can't be signed until July 8.
The deal will pay Gay more than $13 million starting next season, with annual raises of 10.5 percent, a definite upgrade over the five-year, $50 million offer he turned down last season. Gay agreed to a five-year contract on Thursday that will pay him more than $80 million to stay with the Memphis Grizzlies, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press.
Rudy Gay landed the first max deal of the summer while LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and the rest of the star-studded free agent class mulled over offers from NBA suitors. Rudy Gay Signs Max Contract to Stay With Memphis Grizzlies.