Rudy Gobert should have made the All-Star game. I didn’t think it was a particularly close call, either. The Jazz center is an excellent player having an excellent year.
But Western Conference coaches disagreed, snubbing him for your choice of LaMarcus Aldridge, Klay Thompson or Karl-Anthony Towns.
Eric Walden of The Salt Lake Tribune:
Rudy grew increasingly emotional speaking with the media about his All-Star snub. Said his mom called him crying. Said he wrote and deleted several messages on social media. Finally, he grew too emotional to speak, and walked off, wiping away tears. pic.twitter.com/UkFX2nUrt8
— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) February 1, 2019
Rudy: "I think it’s disrespectful. … All the coaches preach about defense, every day they talk about defense, about what an honor it is to get stops, to win basketball games; and when it’s time to vote, they they’re not able to reward the best defensive player in the game." pic.twitter.com/MJctRhRuLu
— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) February 1, 2019
Rudy: "A lot of kids that are watching — you’re telling them that defense doesn’t matter, that winning doesn’t matter. … Defense doesn’t sell as much as offense, it’s a business. It’s fine. But the game is still about competition, it’s about winning … you still gotta keep that. pic.twitter.com/DpThIDjJdJ
— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) February 1, 2019
Warriors forward Draymond Green:
I guess I should cry too... no Charlotte? 😢😢😢
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) February 1, 2019
Nuggets guard Isaiah Thomas:
Come on fam you are too big to be crying like that...
— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) February 1, 2019
I guess that was too soon lol.
— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) February 1, 2019
On some real shit though i was just joking! This is twitter people don’t take this internet life so serious... I hope everybody at some point gets to experience being a all star it’s super dope! I hope he gets it at some point in his career. My bad Rudy I was joking around
— Isaiah Thomas (@isaiahthomas) February 1, 2019
Warriors forward Andre Iguodala:
He gone cry in the car?
— andre (@andre) February 1, 2019
I get it. A grown man who exudes toughness on the court crying over not getting picked an All-Star seems funny. It’s an easy first reaction, and it was mine.
But in a league purporting to care more about mental health, we probably shouldn’t rush to criticize for someone showing his emotions. Gobert’s passion is part of who he is. He shouldn’t have to stifle it because it doesn’t fit a traditional definition of masculinity. We also don’t know everything he’s going through, and empathy should be a more-common response.
Gobert missed a $1 million bonus by not making the All-Star game, but I don’t think that’s what this is about. He cares about competing, and in this case, he was competing against other Western Conference players. And he feels he was treated unfairly by voting coaches.
Maybe now by his peers, too.
Iguodala’s tweet is vague enough to provide plausible deniability about what he’s talking about. Green and Thomas are clearly referring to Gobert. And in Green’s case, he’s being somewhat hypocritical.
Monte Poole of NBC Sports in 2016, when Green made his first All-Star game:Draymond Green thought, for the briefest of moments, he was hearing things, that his mother’s voice was in his head because surely she was not in his presence.
But Mary Babers-Green was indeed on the talkback line, and hers was the voice the Warriors’ power forward heard Thursday afternoon, telling Draymond he had been named to the Western Conference All-Star team.
“I had to keep from crying,” Green said on a post-announcement conference call.