Spurs’ Rudy Gay finds new life as a role player – San Antonio Express-News

He kept on shooting.

The ball kept going in, as if he were tossing a marble down the Grand Canyon.

“When you see one go in, it’s like a swimming pool at times,” Gay said.

Gay finished the night with 21 points, made a career-best five 3-pointers and was 8 of 17 from the field.

For the 35-year-old Gay, it was a flashback to an earlier time, playing for other teams, in which he was expected to keep shooting whether the basket seemed the size of a swimming pool or a shot glass.

For the bulk of his first 11 NBA seasons, Gay’s job was simple: He was paid — handsomely at times — to make the ball go in the basket as many times as possible.

At 6-foot-8 with flawless footwork and a penchant for all kinds of shot-making, Gay was the primary scorer in Memphis, Toronto and Sacramento.

Then Gay got on the wrong side of 30, blew out an Achilles tendon with the Kings in 2017 and came to San Antonio to reclaim his career as a bench player.

“For the most part in my career, I have been asked to take tough shots and make tough shots,” Gay said. “But this year, I am changing my role to being a different player, try to make as many open shots as I can and try to make plays for others.”

Gay’s transition — from leading scorer to role player, top-of-the-marquee attraction to supporting actor — has been four seasons in the making.

He arrived in San Antonio in the summer of 2017 simply glad to be able to walk again after the brutal injury that ended his time in Sacramento.

The Spurs signed Gay to a free-agent deal for two years and $18.4-million.

It was a low-cost gamble for the Spurs, and an easy sell for Gay. In San Antonio, where the Spurs were coming off a 61-win season, he could ease his way back in form without the added burden of being a team’s go-to star.

Gay averaged 11.5 points in his first season with the Spurs, down from 18.7 in his final pre-injury season in Sacramento.

He also logged 21.6 minutes per game, remains a career low.

In three-plus seasons in San Antonio, Gay has come off the bench for 147 of the 209 regular-season appearances.

Heading into Sunday’s game against Washington, Gay was averaging 12 points and attempting 9.8 shots per game — a far cry from the volume scorer who averaged 21.1 points and launched 16.4 field goals per game in 2014-15 with Sacramento.

Earlier this month, Gay passed Los Angeles Lakers great James Worthy for 105th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. Before the end of the week, he is likely to eclipse former Detroit star Joe Dumars for 104th.

Both players are in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said he has received no blowback on a bench role from Gay, who averaged 18 points or better in nine of his first 11 seasons before joining the Spurs.

“It works best for us, with the personnel we have, to have that scoring come off the bench,” Popovich said. “He understands that and that’s what he does for us.”

Gay describes the change in his job description in a different way.

“That’s just part of being competitive,” he said.

In truth, the Spurs did not know what they were getting when Gay signed here in 2017.

You never really know what makes a player tick until you get him in your own locker room.

If Gay had been a player, even post-injury, who needed 18 shots per game, the marriage would not have worked.

Instead, Gay has developed into a role model for younger Spurs about how to age gracefully in the NBA.

“Being a fan of basketball, I know a lot about Rudy, his years in Memphis, Sacramento, all those places,” said Dejounte Murray, the Spurs’ 25-year-old point guard. “It’s good for myself and the young guys just to see somebody like that go through the stages of being that guy to accept a role coming off the bench, be a role player.”

DeMar DeRozan also recalls Gay at his point-scoring best.

Gay averaged 19.5 points in 51 games alongside DeRozan in Toronto from 2012 to 2014.

DeRozan, 31, also views Gay as an example of how to hang around in the league past what for other players might be an expiration date.

“Being around the game, being around great player and great teams, you understand what you need to do to kind of reinvent yourself to last in this league,” DeRozan said. “We are all going to go through that phase at some point. The ones who stick around are the ones who understand that and adjust.”

That has defined Gay’s approach to the third act of his career in San Antonio.

His willingness to adjust to a bench role has allowed Gay to earn an additional $46.4 million in contracts in the wake of an injury that has in the past been a career killer for players past the age of 30.

“Most of my career, I have been the go-to guy to make those tough shots and shoot the ball at the end of the game,” Gay said. “I’ve tried to do less of that since I have been here.”

Every once in a while, however, the basket will look like it did in Portland and Gay will have little choice.

He has to reach back in time, and throw the ball into the swimming pool. Again and again.

And on those nights?

“I tell him to be Rudy Gay,” Murray said. “Go score, go get buckets, do what you do. Because he can still score the basketball.”