We also know that he's the kind of player that the Lakers would discuss trading Dwight Howard for, clearly his value has shot up since then.
You say I can't speculate above, but then you speculate here. Which is it?
Far more importantly, do you actually buy for a moment that the Lakers thought about trading Howard for Rondo? That was clearly a Boston-floated rumor.
C'mon now...
Sorry, I was being facetious. The vast majority of what people "know" on this blog are things that they're guessing about. Like whether that rumor was Boston-floated.
Got it. I bet we can agree it didn't come from the Lakers, which leaves....
And I'm assuming you know that it didn't come from the Lakers because there were previous Rondo-Gasol rumors and Kobe's talked about wanting Rondo on his team before, right?
Well let's see if we can agree on the below without facetiousness.
Rule of thumb: NBA trade rumors are leaked by the team (or player, if they want out) with the most to gain. That applies to Rondo for Gasol (Lakers) just like it does to Rondo for Howard (Celtics). It typically has very little to do with the actual rumor itself, but rather with boosting the market for the player of lesser value, or, Gasol and Rondo respectively in these two instances.
In the case of Rondo, Kobe waxing poetic about Rondo, cobined with the perceived discontent between Kobe and Howard, gave the Cs a perfect excuse to float such talk right before the trade deadline. It probably coincides with some light discussion between the Cs and another team about Rondo -- say, the Kings. Worst case, Petrie gets anxious, calls up and increases his offer to Ainge as a reaction. If he doesn't, Ainge can always go back to Rondo's agent a couple of days later and say: "we are not trade Rajon right now"... vote of confidence for his recovering PG.
Seem fair?