He's not even the highest paid player on the team. And the highest paid player on the team, having joined it not even a year ago, is apparently allowed to do whatever he wants. And according to you, Rudy should just shut up and act like none of this is his business.
Rudy's been tired this year because he's been asked to do both his job and other people's jobs. Defensive failures affect perimeter players and centres very differently. When Conley and Mitchell get beaten by their man because instead of moving their feet, they just flapped their arms towards him and then shrugged their shoulders as if there was nothing they could to there(watch how many times that happened this season), the man who beat them will then drive on Rudy. Or because the defense is now scrambling, pass to another teammate who is going to drive on Rudy. Defensive failure on the perimeter becomes Rudy's problem. When the opposite happens and Rudy's man drives past him, Mike Conley isn't tasked with stopping that man. People getting beaten on the perimeter creates more work for Rudy. A lot more.
That's why Rudy's pissed and he should be pissed. Unless you're a stooge and you buy into your employer's ********, you should always be pissed when you're asked to do your work and that of your colleagues. And this has been going on all year. Look at the DRtg of Bojan, Joe, Donovan, and Mike. Just getting worse and worse every month of the season. They've all been playing less and less defense as the season progressed. Not like you need DRtg to see that, if you've watched the team play. Rudy's DRtg has actually stayed surprisingly stable, though even he took a dip in February. Not nearly as large as the others, but hey, let's keep calling him out for it.
Rudy is human, too. It's ridiculous to expect him to act like everything is okay when there's dysfunction all around him. He's affected by all this. Oh, he's been complaining. Good. Someone should be. We have the team deciding to bench Conley, that information leaking, then the team deciding not to bench Conley because his agent got involved, and then the team acting like this wasn't a major screw up. This whole season has been an exercise in sunk cost fallacy. We put all our eggs in one basket for the next two seasons by trading for an over-the-hill undersized PG who desperately needs the ball in his hands. Then when it didn't work(it was never going to, when you look at the make up of the team), the FO just kept upping the ante and trying even harder to make it work. But yeah, I guess Rudy shouldn't whine. He should just shut up and do his job while Mike Conley gets treated like he's Karl Malone.
