Written by Braxton Carr at The Sports Quotient
If you ask 10 different people for their opinion on Rajon Rondo, you will invariably receive 10 vastly different responses. Should the person in question be a Celtics fan, you’ll hear reminiscing over the glory days of the original “Big Three” and fond remembrance of the urban legend that was “Playoff Rondo.” If you’ve asked a person who happens to be a member of the media, they’ll fill you in on his well-documented difficult personality.
And if you’ve asked a Mavericks fan, they will likely inform you quite bitterly of the more recent edition of playoff Rondo, the one who effectively flamed out in the 2014 Western Conference playoffs, offering the meager contribution of 19 points, six assists, and two rebounds over two games.
“Rajon Rondo is out indefinitely with a back injury,” the injury report read after Game 2. No one believed it. Indeed, The Mavs and Rondo made a mutual decision to part ways the next day, sources told ESPNDallas.com, citing the back injury to help the four-time All-Star point guard save face.
The end of the road seemed nigh for Rondo, a former star now being forced to reckon with his own basketball mortality. Rondo himself was audibly aware of this decline. “I haven’t played defense in a couple of years,” he told Masslive.com’s Jay King. He signed a one-year, $9.5 million contract with the Sacramento Kings.
The signing wasn’t ridiculed, but it wasn’t exactly met with thunderous applause, either. “When Rajon Rondo signed with the Kings in the offseason, he did so because no one else wanted him,” wrote SB Nation’s Jesus Gomez. ”Mercurial point guards with broken jumpers aren’t exactly coveted pieces.”
The NBA world awaited the assumed, inevitable combustion of Rondo in Sacramento. The writing, fans thought, was on the wall—this was the supposed final fall of Rondo’s star. But then something funny happened: Rondo’s been good. Better than good, in fact. Rondo has been fantastic.
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