Your long post is a great breakdown of my entire issue - everything ends up being blamed on Don. Every nuance of our team issues gets blamed on him - passes to Rudy, defense, offense, team chemistry. The narrative has all been altered over time to blame it on him.
He's not innocent, but it's mostly all bogus. It's almost all drummed up for two reasons - love of Rudy and fear of him leaving.
It's all been spun so tight to make Don the focus. Nobody ever points out that Conley never stepped up when needed as player or a leader. The guy meant to be the cherry on top has been the anchor. And we know nothing was ever Rudy's fault. For F sake, doesn't matter if he couldn't catch a women's ball handed to him, he tried real hard so that excuses everything. His media outbursts and locker room mistakes- all cool because the spin has been to blame Don for everything.
Don doesn't deserve the hate you guys give him. He deserves better.
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Hey, I could be wrong. It's just one of the options I see. I hope I'm wrong.
You are projecting by the way. You probably hate Rudy more than I "love" Rudy. I had a picture of Don as my avatar if that tells you who I loved all this time. Quit making crap up. You know the Houston series where Don put up a shot that was short and it hit the rim, then Don with an amazing quick bounce jumped right back up and grabbed the rebound on the way up and threw down a dunk. That blew my mind, I loved that play. I love Don as a player, but I'm not an idiot. I know the world, I know people, I can see how things work. Most of the communication in this world is non verbal.
Conley with the Jazz has never been worth the contract he has. It hasn't been an AK albatross contract for us but it didn't help. He has done a few nice things but he wasn't a 3rd star for us by any means.
Is Rudy an untouchable god that never did anything wrong? No. He's done some stupid things. He is flawed and in game situations can't seem to shoot beyond 3 feet... or dunking it tbh.
It's as fair to say Rudy should learn a move or two... or three or 4 on the offensive side of the ball to keep teams honest as it is to say Don, Conley, JC, and Bogey need to either not suck at individual defense or they need to buy in to Quin's "scheme" and funnel people to Rudy who not only tries on D he's elite. He's not just elite, he's generationally elite on D.
We like that Rudy is so good at something that nobody in the league is better (arguably). You can't say that about Don, Conley, JC, Bogey, or any other player on the Jazz.
The focus should be on Don and Rudy. They were the 2 stars on the team. They were the split. They divided the locker room. They are the focus. Now you ask why many fans are down on Don lately, well it's because Don was a crap teammate to Rudy in what was visual to fans. What happened behind closed doors nobody knows. We won't know who to support if something happened we don't know about. But what we do know is the world came down on one of our own and his co team leader left him out to dry and then after all that put on a mask and pretended to be good but all the non verbal cues said he hated Rudy and then he left him out to dry on the floor. Fans aren't stupid. If you know something we don't, let us know... but you know the rules. Links and pics or it didn't happen.
I know you love Don like you are his mom. That's cool. Defend him to your death, that's cool. Everyone needs people like that. He deserves that. My hunch is he's really a good dude that may have a good reason to be so angry at Rudy, but that doesn't mean you blow him up and blow up the team to get what you want. The other teammates know what's up. I'm guessing they took sides, and maybe they all took Don's side and so nobody backed up Rudy at least in the public eye... but maybe there were some there that were afraid of the star mafia coming after them next so they just shut their mouths or agreed to stay out of the crossfire. I know how these things go down. Don's not the only one that can put on a mask and be fake at times. Life comes at us fast, and it sucks... but being fake pushes people away just as much as it pulls some people in.
If Don's the focus it's because he was the co captain/star of this team with Rudy. You can't step up and then say... why is this all about me. Lopo, you can't be all "why is this all about Don". C'mon, you have to be smarter than that.
This is also about Rudy... then Conley, JC, Bogey, and the others. The team used to have Ingles to help out but once he was shipped out it got 10x worse imo.
The bottom line this is mostly about Rudy and Don. This fan base likes effort and for people to be real. To have Rudy try and call people out on not trying on D, that's a plus in peoples eyes even if it's not done right.
To have Don not pass the ball with a wide open Rudy, and to see him get burnt on D over and over and be lazy, that's definitely not a plus in the eyes of this fan base.
Now you say why is this all about Don? Why don't you ask Don. It's called actions and consequences.