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Draft Express: The much anticipated workout between Brandon Roy and Rudy Gay scheduled for June 2nd never transpired. Both Roy and Gay made it to Charlotte and even went through some brief conditioning drills, but after 15 minutes Roy decided to quit, citing that he was not feeling well. The Bobcats were obviously disappointed, as everyone knows the emphasis that Head Coach and GM Bernie Bickerstaff puts on competitiveness.
Plenty of noise was already made about this workout before it was even conducted, as the Bobcats were hoping to have Adam Morrison in with Roy and Gay as well, but Morrison could not attend due to prior marketing obligations and the fact that he did not want to end up making two trips back and forth from the West Coast to the East Coast for the Bobcats workout and then the Orlando pre-draft camp physicals and measurements.
What Roy suffered through is apparently exactly what Morrison wanted to avoid, as the three hour time zone difference between the East and West coast and waking up at 7 AM for a workout (4 AM Pacific) likely had everything to do with the way Roy felt when he started working out. Roy’s camp told us that the rumors that are swirling about him dodging Morrison are “nonsense” and that both players have “great respect for each other and would gladly play against one another if the agents involved would be finally able to get something done.” Roy’s AAU coach Lou Hobson told us that what happened with his former player in Charlotte was a “fatigue issue,” and that “no one should be forced to fly cross country late at night and have to wake up just a few hours later for such an important workout.”
This is not the first time the issue of Roy “dodging” workouts has been brought up, as a team source wondered to us that whether Brazilian prospect Marcus Vinicus Viera de Souza is being avoided by Roy after their workout last week with the Los Angeles Lakers. Rodney Carney appears to have a similar beef with Roy after seeing him pull out of a Houston workout last week. What’s odd is that everything we’ve been hearing is that Roy is playing extremely well in almost every workout he’s been to, particularly a few weeks ago when GMs traveled to Los Angeles to watch him play. A message left for Roy’s agent at the Arn Tellem/Bob Myers Wasserman media group office was not returned. It’s easy to forget in all this mess that Brandon Roy is still the same player he’s always been, in our mind the most polished and NBA ready player in this draft, and an absolute lock to be drafted in top 6 or 7 picks in the draft. Everything else that is surrounding him and the draft process is a bit odd, though.
Come on spelling bee!