Rudy Gay Trade: What Does it Mean for the Sixers?

So it appears Rudy Gay's last moment in Memphis was a tough shot in the paint at the Wells Fargo Center over Evan Turner to beat the Sixers. Not a bad way to go out, homie. The only guy in the league who has dealt with as many trade rumors as Andre Iguodala had has finally been traded. He's shipping up to Canada, where he'll play for the Toronto Raptors and leading candidate for Most Ed Stefanski Move Of The Year Award, Ed Stefanski.

The holdup over the past few days had been finding a team to take the expiring contract of Jose Calderon and make the deal work. They found their guys in Joe Dumars and the Detroit Pistons, who finally came up roses after a trade for the first time since the first Boy Band Era.

John Hollinger and the Memphis Grizzlies moved one of the most blatantly overpaid guys in the league and got the most valuable asset in the trade in young, talented, object of my affection, Ed Davis. They also had to take on Tayshaun Prince and the matter-less mass of Austin Daye, but opinions of those vary depending on who you ask. Hamed Haddadi went to Toronto where he will promptly be waived prior to arriving north of the border because Visa issues are going to be a mess. "Screw that." - Bryan Colangelo.

Obviously this is totally the Ed that we know. You've got a cool, young team with lots of fun players and some expiring contracts. You're sort of in the running for an 8-seed and the lottery pick you reached on last year is actually impressing. So what do you do? Well, you've already signed DeMar DeRozan to an unnecessary extension before the season in addition to overpaying for Landry Fields, glorified 6th man.

So you obviously get Rudy Gay, immensely overpaid and tremendously average, a guy that has road his reputation on reputation alone rather than production, and a guy whose team is pretty definitively better off without him. He'll block Terrence Ross and oh, you just traded Ed Davis too. Really great work, Ed.

The Raptors could roll with a Kyle Lowry-DeRozan-Ross-Gay-Jonas Valanciunas starting 5 once JV is healthy, which would be intriguing and bad at defense, but I can't see them being that creative. Pretty unfortunate trade for them. They aren't threats to the Sixers contending hopes when Andrew Bynum gets back. There's a chance they could make a run at the 8th seed, but I doubt it. Plus, OKC has their first rounder this year. Rough.

Detroit is the one to worry about if you're a Sixer fan pining for that 8-seed. They're 2.5 games back of the Sixers and Andre Drummond may be the best human to ever exist. Greg Monroe rocks, and now they have a point guard in Calderon to keep Brandon Knight away from the ball. AND they got rid of albatrossian Tayshaun Prince, who they should've never signed in the first place. They'll probably Pistons it and start Corey Maggette or something, but from a talent perspective, they're a better team than the Bynumless Sixers are.

This is the biggest trade of the season so far, so read some reaction pieces from respective SBN blogs below. They are good. If they weren't good, I wouldn't link them to you. Promise.

Raptors HQ takes a diplomatic approach to the trade, claiming that it's not so bad because they did get the best player in the deal. They do still have Andrea Bargnani, which I just remembered. I would be posting sad pictures of Ed Davis looking off into the Canadian horizon.

Straight Outta Vancouver has the Grizz Beat covered, lowering the heartbeat of all the POINTZ fans out there dying over them trading Rudy for what I'm sure someone is calling "peanuts."

Detroit Bad Boys somehow manage not to post an entire gallery of Andre Drummond doing awesome things and instead looks at the winners (like Dumars) and losers (like Will Bynum, who has been healthy all season FYI) of the trade.

Now I'm just ready for the Sixers to do something.