I've reviewed the article; I may have read it before.
The interview with Rodney occurred within the immediate aftermath of his friend's passing. That was the "initial jolt" that I referred to in my first reply to you. The course of processing a difficult event such as his friend's death evolves over time. Rather than lagging in sadness, I suggest, perhaps the event launched him into a different trajectory. Perhaps through processing, it opened his heart and mind and sharpened his appeal for life. His mental state could more buoyant than you think it is. Just maybe. And his performance on the court may be hindered for other reasons.
Referring again to the article, did you not cue in to the statement by the author that Rodney found solace in playing basketball? Basketball was his refuge. It was a cocoon separating him from the reality of what had just occurred. One would think he would embrace it, cling to it and play the game of basketball with vigor.
Your take is completely plausible.
The distribution curve underpins a great deal of my thinking. Applying the distribution curve to the topic we're discussing I'm postulating after a tragedy on one end of the curve are people who can move immediately pass the event. On the other end are people who never can get pass the tragedy. Most of us fall in between needing various intervals of time before we finally can move on. The second curve is how we deal with the tragedy. On one end the impact ends up making us better (your theories about Rodney). On the other end it makes us worse. Most of us fall in between with a combination of positives and negatives.
My arguments are purely my opinions. This is a debatable exercise that I'm choosing to explore and not convince you or anyone else my position is absolute but to go into a little depth the factor that lead to my conclusion.
My experience is that sudden and unexpected deaths take much longer to get past then deaths that are expected and take place after long illnesses. So just by probabilities I'm guessing Rodney is still going through a mourning phase or at the very least was suffering a period well past that article. The salient point for me in the article was how Rodney and his brother were looking forward to meeting up in the Maui tournament.
It's not completely out of the realm of probability that everything leading up to and during that tournament brought to focus the death. Rodney could try to put on a good face and do his best to put it out of his mind, but not too many of us have that skill.
Just look how people react in these forums to insults, losses, bad play, CR, and anything else that hits are emotions. It's not easy to get past the trivial negativities in our life never mind the serious ones. For years all someone had to say was George Mason and a significant number of posters would feel their emotional anger for that loss.
So I feel that at least up to and shortly after Maui (because Maui was the focus of extreme happiness before the tragedy) Rodney did not have his heart in the game. At some time after Maui he tried to force his passion back. I'm not sure he was successful but his attempt to will himself back probably exacerbated his situation.
