“I think it was their admiration of me. They loved my game,” he said. “Again, there are always things I can work on and improve to compete at the NBA level and get playing time, but overall, they were saying there are many aspects of my game that directly correlate into the NBA game, and that really gave me confidence in myself and my game.”
What made the decision hard for him was his time at Colorado State.
Roddy helped set the improved course of the program from the first day of his arrival. He became a starter early in his freshman season, and his style of game quickly made him a force on the court with his blend of power and athleticism. He gave the Rams flexibility on both ends of the floor with his ability to play offense and defense as a player who was bigger than his stature.
Even more, it was the person he was which made just as important of an impact. He wasn’t a quiet freshman, he was immediately involved and grew into a team leader and off the court, the perfect representative for the program and the campus.
He leaves having averaged 15.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists. He set a school record this past season with 222 field goals, scoring 595 points to rank third in a single campaign. For a career, he sits ninth in career scoring with 1,406 points and in the top 20 in field goals made, rebounds, blocked shots, free throws made, scoring average and blocked shots average.
After doing all that, and getting rather close with his teammates, there was a downside to his happiness – telling them.
The hardest call for him to make – 100 percent, he said – was to classmate Isaiah Stevens, the point guard he roomed with all three years on campus. Roddy became emotional, but Stevens used all his will to hold back the waterworks.
It was all in the perception, with Stevens viewing the news with excitement for a friend. No doubt, he will miss him.
“I think his overall presence. We’re so similar competitively, and obviously our relationship stems far beyond the court, the random conversations we would have in the living room,” Stevens said. “I lived with him every year I’ve been at CSU so we’ve gotten to know each other on a very personal level. Our families know each other very well, he’s come and stayed with me in the summer … Our relationship goes far beyond basketball. But his presence on the court, he was super cerebral, loved to compete and was going to go at anybody regardless of their status. When you go into all these gyms across the country, those are the kinds of guys you want to go to war with. I’m going to miss that the most.
“He'll be a phenomenal professional. I’m pretty excited for him. I was trying to tell him that on the phone. Do not feel sad because of me and the other guys that you’re leaving us, you earned the position you’re in. He 100 percent earned it. I let him know we’ll still be here, we’ll still be some of his closest friends and talk to him as much as we can, but don’t feel sad or believe you’re letting us down. I can’t wait to see where he goes to try to earn a roster spot. That’s all you want playing this game, is to one day hopefully fulfill this dream.”
The news definitely marks a change for Colorado State’s basketball team, which reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time 2013. Medved’s team will still be loaded with talent, but you don’t lose the conference player of the year and feel the effect.
The Rams will still be good, but how good becomes the immediate question. One Stevens said should be asked, but just not now. As soon as the news broke, he said that’s all anybody wanted to know, but he said they were missing the point.
“It's like, man, forget all the basketball stuff,” he said. We can get to that in a little bit and navigate some stuff differently, but why can’t we just celebrate the fact David Roddy is about to go achieve a dream that I’m sure he’s had set out since he was a kid playing in the living room playing with his family and his brothers in the back yard? I think he needs to get all the praise right now, and we can worry about all the basketball stuff at a later time.”
Medved agrees. He and his staff will have some interesting discussions moving forward, but in the moment, a celebration was necessary.
What will help, he said, is while the physical presence of Roddy will be absent, his impact will still be felt.
“When we talk about foundation, he’s the epitome of that,” Medved said. “There are big shoes to fill, and guys that are currently here and guys that will continue to come in the program, he set the example of what is a true stalwart Ram and what it means to be a member of our program, to do it the right way and do it at an elite level. He leaves really big shoes to fill, but he is that foundation.”
In some ways, the work is just beginning for Roddy, who made his decision public while in Portland, waiting to work out for the Trail Blazers on Thursday, a session with Golden State to follow the next.
He will have more workouts and meetings with teams scheduled in the lead-up to the draft, but now he thinks he’ll enter them even more determined more confident. There’s a sense of freedom which came with the decision.
“It’s a little bit of a relief, finally getting it out there and more excitement for these workouts and that I’m all in now,” Roddy said. “That will help me in my case with workouts. There are no second thoughts. I can go out and compete my hardest and leave it all out there.”
As he did as a Ram. Which made the right decision so much harder to render.
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