Written by Eric Freeman at YahooSports.com
Did you know that Rajon Rondo led the NBA in assists this season? Don’t be ashamed if you didn’t. Toiling for an unimpressive, uninspiring Sacramento Kings that was only intermittently interesting as a trainwreck, Rondo put up 11.7 assists per game while running an offense that finished 14th in offensive efficiency. It was an impressive bounce-back campaign for the 30-year-old after a disastrous half-season with the Dallas Mavericks, but there’s a reason Rondo’s 2015-16 will be remembered far more for his suspension for a homophobic slur directed at referee Bill Kennedy than for his play on the court.
Rondo therefore entered free agency this offseason as an interesting commodity, a player capable of putting up very good numbers of no clear benefit to his team. He left the market Sunday with a deal befitting such a player.
As reported by Marc Spears of ESPN’s The Undefeated via a message from Rondo himself, the four-time All-Star will join the Chicago Bulls on a two-year, $28 million contract. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst added that the second year is partially guaranteed, and USA Today’s Sam Amick said the second year has a vague “mutual buyout.” Either way, the general parameters of the contract seem set.
The Bulls should feel pretty happy with those terms for a starting point guard, especially with so few available on the market this summer and 36-year-old sixth man Jamal Crawford getting three years and $42 million from the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday. Rondo has been defined by his deficiencies over his past few seasons, but his strengths are real. It’s unlikely that he will average close to 12 assists again with star Jimmy Butler as a backcourt partner, but a player who sets teammates up for buckets so often is far from useless. For that matter, Rondo improved his outside shooting last season to convert a career-best 36.5 percent of his three-pointers on 2.4 attempts per game. Those numbers could be skewed by playing with an interior presence as attention-grabbing as DeMarcus Cousins, but they show that Rondo can make adjustments to contribute in an era that seemed to have left him behind.
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