We've probably all run into people, in our respective lines of work, who were old and kind of dead wood but were hanging on as long as they could because they were in their peak earning years. Unless and until their work quality slipped so much that they got fired, we might grumble about them but could at least see things from their point of view. (And I freely confess to having been exactly that kind of dead wood in my final couple of years as well.) The usual pay structure in the US is such that you don't hit your peak earning years until close to the end. It leads to some perverse incentives but all in all seems acceptable to the employers and the work force alike. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Big time sports operate differently. Peak earning years may not happen instantly (baseball and basketball and football each have their own rhythms to this), but they still come at a very early age in the human lifespan. I can't get much more worked up about an athlete in his 20s, not even dead wood yet, trying to protect his peak earning years in whatever way makes sense to him, than I can about the dead wood dudes where I worked.
As an aside: elsewhere we see posters beg Derek Falvey or Joe Pohlad to just "tell us the truth." Royce Lewis spoke his mind, and we see what kind of blowback that earns someone in the public eye.