Rudy Gay sounds less than enthused about entering his fourth basketball season with the Sacramento Kings. From John Davidson of the Sacramento Bee:
“I wake up every day and get ready to play the next game,” Gay said after practice Wednesday. “I’m with the Sacramento Kings. I prepare as if I’m going to be with the Sacramento Kings. I have no choice but to work for the Sacramento Kings.
“All the speculation is BS. Really, it’s out of my control. I’ll come here and be with my teammates and act as if I’ll be here all year.”
Gay acknowledged he’s aware of the rumors.
“I hear it,” he said. “I’ve been traded before. If I came here (to practice) as if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t help my teammates. That’s a league thing. That’s not just me. That’s something you don’t want a reputation for (quitting on your team).”
Players can’t blatantly tell the media “I hate it here this sucks I want to be somewhere else. Like, anywhere else. Literally.” But that’s the vibe that I’m getting from Gay’s thinly-veiled cries for help.
In other very related Rudy Gay news, in 2015 he warned former Kings head coach George Karl about the franchise by calling Sacramento “basketball hell.” From Marc Stein, who has a copy of George Karl’s upcoming book:
(An aside on Gay: He’s quoted in an advance copy of George Karl’s forthcoming book “Furious George,” due to be published in January by HarperCollins, as telling Karl when he met the new Sacramento coach for the first time in February 2015, “Welcome to basketball hell.”)
