I want to throw one thought out there. Rudy had a back injury. Back injuries aren't something you just "get over". They are with you for life. I have been wondering if the back injury may have had a serious effect on his career, or maybe at least, on how he plays.
Entirely possible. If that's so, he should sue Tony Ariza for lost future wages for turn from a rookie sharpshooter extraordinaire to a poor man's Sergio Rodriguez.
I saw numerous stories post surgery where he claimed he was pain free and felt like new ... perhaps he was lying.
I think the #1 explanation is the absence of Sergio. Sergio looked out for Rudy, and most of Rudy's good play was because of Sergio. And probably Rudy's confidence built off things like the alley oops those two would connect on every other game. You can't break that Armada up! BUT: at least earlier this season (i.e., before surgery) he was getting a pretty stellar amount of steals. What happened to that? Just better ball-handlers for the Suns.
Definitely had a Turkoglu-esque season. Add him to Sergio Rodriguez and Sebastian Telfair as the classic counter-examples to the Jermaine O'Neal "We can't trade him--he's so young we don't even know what we've got" Argument. Sometimes the only upside is downside.
It's too early for that! Jermaine was with us for, what, 4 seasons? He had at least 2 seasons where he was supposed to bust out and appeared to regress. Didn't he get a tattoo, something like "Season of the Resurrection" and then proceed to have a completely forgettable season? You can only conclusively say that when (as in Telfair's and Sergio's case) you've traded him and he's continued to suck. At that point they move from "potential Jermaine O'Neals" to "potential Chauncey Billupses". After that, their only hope is "potential John Salmonses".
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