Rudy Gay was one of the most celebrated members of the 2006 NBA Draft class, but he fell to eighth overall and was traded by the Rockets to Memphis in a deal for Shane Battier.

He had a true breakout season in 07-08, his second in the NBA, but he has since struggled to improve in any meaningful way.

We knew Gay would be a beneficiary of being a restricted free agent this summer by piggy-backing off the heralded true max players in LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, etc., but few could predict his max contract would come from his incumbent team on the first day of free agency.

The strategy when dealing with your own RFAs is to stall and threaten to match anything, which handcuffs the player and his agent. It is a strategy that worked a few summers ago for the Hawks with Josh Smith and also last season with David Lee and the Knicks.

There is no conceivable benefit for the Grizzlies to offer a full max to Gay unless he was a special circumstances player such as Kevin Durant or even his draft classmate Brandon Roy.

Over the life of the extension, Gay will make $25M more than Rajon Rondo, who agreed to an extension with the Celtics several months ago before ever hitting the open market.

The NBA is on a collision course with an extended lockout, but when small market teams that are losing money are signing marginally above average players like Rudy Gay to max contract, it is extremely confounding.

Leaving the economics aside, let's examine Gay's attributes on the court.

He is uber-athletic and won't turn 24 until August, meaning he has room to improve still and the Grizzlies have bought his entire prime with a few seasons to spare.

Gay has improved his mid-range jumper substantially since coming into the NBA, as well as his defense. On good nights, he looks like an All-Star but he still struggles with his consistency.

He too frequently is forced to create his own offense off the dribble, or simply becomes a spot-up shooter in the Grizzlies' offense. Those parts of his game have improved, but they should offset his slashing and not vice versa.

His PER of 16.3 ranks him about 10th amongst NBA small forwards and he's probably a little better than that. The position is fairly weak right now once you get past the holy trinity of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony. I would put Danny Granger ahead of him as well and probably Gerald Wallace, and while Nicolas Batum might surpass him, that's a big question mark. Paul Pierce is beyond his prime obviously and I don't think Luol Deng is as good as him and is trending downwards. At the very worst, Gay is a top-8 small forward right now.

There are certain teams where Gay might be worth an $80M contract, an up-tempo team with a legitimate alpha scorer, but it is hard to see how he can be worth that much to Memphis. He is easily at his best offensively in transition, where he can use his athleticism and strong all-around game.

Gay is the primary ISO scorer of the Grizzlies and losing him would have set the team back, but this is hardly sound economics. But the ISO role doesn't really suit him and the Grizzlies need someone else better suited for that role.

The Grizzlies also drafted a wing in Xavier Henry, plus they already have O.J. Mayo, so a trade of either player this summer seems like an inevitability unless they truly believe the latter can run the point guard.

Max players should be All-Stars every single season and Rudy Gay is not one of those players.

Grade for Grizzlies: C-

There was an excellent chance that Gay would end up signing a max contract this summer, so credit must be given to Jeff Austin and Octagon for making it happen so swiftly.

But at the same time, his next contract would probably have been for substantially more money had he gone to a more talented team that would be guaranteed to be in the playoffs on an annual basis. He will become a free agent again essentially at the age of 29 and will he have even appeared in a playoff game at that point? There is a good chance the Grizzlies will make a playoff appearance by then, but it isn't something anyone would feel comfortable betting their life or their career on.

In a few months, and particularly after the new CBA, this deal may look absolutely dreadful and he probably won't finish the contract in Memphis.

Grade for Rudy Gay: B+


• Chris Reina is the executive editor of RealGM. Follow him on Twitter at @CR_Reina.