It was the right move
The knock on Gay is that he doesn't hustle and lacks intensity (think Kwame Brown on heroin... I mean, did you see the George Mason game?), which, coincidentally, is the knock on Stromile. Talent is cheap, potential is a dime a dozen, and for every draft "project" who makes it big (Amare, Garnett, etc), there are 20 who bust (Joe Smith, Olowakandi, Eddy Curry, Chris Wilcox, Mike Dunleavy, Nikoloz Tshcisihlsihlivcil, the entire 2000 draft class, EDDIE GRIFFIN for Rudy's sake!). In fact, you're lucky to get a decent rotation guy out of the draft, someone like... Shane Battier. He's a blue collar guy, a hard worker, a locker room leader... IMO, the ceiling for Gay's potential is to be the next Shane Battier (who is, essentially, the next Robert Horry, just not so in love with the 3 or the Krispy Kremes).
The Glory Days of the '94 team were built around one superstar and the right pieces. In 1990, the team went 41-41 under the stellar leadership of Don Cheaney with a starting lineup of Hakeem, Thorpe, Buck Johnson, Mad Max and Sleepy Floyd. That's 3 of 5 starters from the first Championship team! All that really changed were the pieces around Dream: we replaced an aging, shoot-first PG (who cared so much they called him Sleepy) with the jump-shooting Kenny Smith; we replaced the transparent Buck with a pre-donut fixation Horry; and added a rookie named Sam Cassell with the 24th pick of the '93 draft. Right now, we've got 2 studs, we just need the right pieces around them (and possibly a back transplant...)
Dumping these 2 clowns makes perfect sense to me. Stro was obviously not a good fit for us, and drafting a 19 year old is too damn unpredictable (just ask Joe Dumars...)
Of course, if we finish dead last in the division again next year and Rudy Gay becomes a superstar, I'll eat my Sidney Moncrief jersey...
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