Sounds like Rudy will play for France…

[Sundog]

https://twitter.com/jacefrederick/statu ... 1SfRe3pBFA

Not great news given how worn out he showed up to training camp.

[Phenom]

I hope Ant throws one down on his mug.

[Q-is-here]

Ugh...that's disappointing.

[kekgeek]

I’m torn on this. Rudy has played international ball almost his whole career and last year was the only year it affected him. Is it because he is getting older or because he got hurt in euro play. Just hope all of our guys make it through the 8 games healthy

[Lipoli390]

I’m torn on this. Rudy has played international ball almost his whole career and last year was the only year it affected him. Is it because he is getting older or because he got hurt in euro play. Just hope all of our guys make it through the 8 games healthy

I’m not torn on this at all. I’m really disgusted by Rudy’s decision.

Rudy came here last season and had his worst statistical year since his rookie year. He essentially replaced the injured Towns as our starting center and the team went from a 46-win team to a 42 win team, and from the 8th best offense to 23rd. There was no net improvement in the team’s rebounding and only a slight improvement defensively - moving up from the 13th ranked defense to the 10th. All of that even though Ant and Jaden were vastly improved from thee prior season and even though Rudy had Anderson on the roster with him and had KAT for over 30 games.

Rudy has said he didn’t play up to his ability last season and he was the one who attributed it to being worn down from playing for France last summer. And the Wolves front office has echoed Rudy’s assessment. What does Rudy do? He decides to play for France again this summer. The Wolves gave up a boat load of assets to get Rudy. Sure that’s not his responsibility. But he’s getting over $40M from the Wolves each of the next three years. Some responsibilities come with that sort of contract from his NBA team and one of those responsibilities is to put that NBA team - the Wolves - ahead of his personal preferences. It would be different if he had never played for his nation’s team before, but that’s not the case. All this, yet he still decided to play for France again. Again, he’s doing this after saying that playing for France last summer wore him down and contributed to what he admitted was sub-optimal play for the Wolves.

Tim Connelly made it clear that the team told Rudy they would prefer him not playing this summer. TC also said, however, that the Wolves left the decision to Rudy. That was the right thing to do. They gave Rudy the discretion to decide and what Rudy has done with that discretion is telling. Maybe we’ll find that Rudy has agreed to a minutes restriction of some kind, but if not then I can’t give Rudy a pass on this.

[AbeVigodaLive]

I’m torn on this. Rudy has played international ball almost his whole career and last year was the only year it affected him. Is it because he is getting older or because he got hurt in euro play. Just hope all of our guys make it through the 8 games healthy

Or it was just a convenient excuse.

[WildWolf2813]

Ant, Rudy, and possibly KAT and Kyle are going overseas to play.

Gotta deal with it, same way we wanted Rubio not to go to Europe and play.

[Lipoli390]

Ant, Rudy, and possibly KAT and Kyle are going overseas to play.

Gotta deal with it, same way we wanted Rubio not to go to Europe and play.

The difference is that Ant, KAT and Kyle have never played overseas in the summer and then pointed to it as something that hurt their performance the following season.

[Lipoli390]

By the way, I think it’s ridiculous that KAT and Kyle are playing this summer. They’re both vets with a lot of mileage who have had a recent history of injuries. Ant is a young durable guy with the chance to play for his country for the first time. That’s different. I’m not happy with the decisions of KAT, Anderson and Rudy. I’m particularly unhappy with Rudy because of his experience last season and is own comments about the impact playing last summer had on his play in the NBA.

[kekgeek]

By the way, I think it’s ridiculous that KAT and Kyle are playing this summer. They’re both vets with a lot of mileage who have had a recent history of injuries. Ant is a young durable guy with the chance to play for his country for the first time. That’s different. I’m not happy with the decisions of KAT, Anderson and Rudy. I’m particularly unhappy with Rudy because of his experience last season and is own comments about the impact playing last summer had on his play in the NBA.

I don't disagree with anything you are saying. I sort of feel bad for the players. I know we don't feel it but its an honor to support your country and Rudy is France best player. Its actually sort of crazy that the NBA has not embraced international ball like other sports have. I mean Hockey has a mid season break for it, Soccer the same, Baseball has a world baseball classic run by the MLB. I think people would have less issue with the Fiba basketball stuff if the tournament started in the middle of July.


Overall I get everyones feelings on this. The Wolves pay Rudy 40 million to play for them but I also get where players like Rudy especially are coming from. (I get it a little bit from Kat side, Slow Mo situation is interesting to say the least.