Yahoo! Woj Article on Rondo

[Dybdal]

Well, great article..

I for one am going to enjoy watching rondo this year, as i doubt he will be in green next year.

It just seems as though he's getting all the flak and i have my personal doubts that its all "his" fault or rather, that the episodes regarding KG, Paul and Ray just dosnt get into the media.

Here's to hoping though.. Rondo is just to fun to watch and it would feel so [dang] rotten to see him on a opposing team.

[Brickowski]

IMHO Rondo was definitely shopped last winter--for Chris Paul.  Ainge has coveted CP3 since 2003.

[jdpapa3]

Hate to blame a guy, but the most candid Celtics player in the last few months has been Leon Powe. I would bet it was him that leaked this.

I am trying to figure out what the issue was: how the young guys were treated? Man, I don't know how I feel about this whole thing, but it isn't great to hear. Hopefully they won't be steered away from the path this year and can unite as a team.

I am a little bit down on the stories I have heard about Rondo showing up late for playoff games, and trying to facilitate a meeting that prompts guys to let out feelings that they didn't truly have is troubling.

[ThaPreacher]

What's interesting is that this story is coming out now.

Yeah, true.  Doc and Danny have been planting the seeds for it all off-season (calling out Rondo for his maturity and stubbornness, saying the young guys had their own agendas, etc.)  However, I'd be curious to see where this story leaked from, since the article suggests that neither Doc nor Rondo was eager to talk about it.

Rondo is a rare talent.  It is curious that the story is breaking as the Celtics are looking to extend his contract at an affordable rate.  The media needs to write about something.
I don't necessarily dispute some of the assertions.  However, they seem to be conclusions drawn from an earlier time period.  Frankly this is quite typical of the author of the story.

[misterx2day]

Interesting:

Rondo appeared to want his teammates to air out complaints in the early evening of April 14, but it rapidly deteriorated into a grievance session that had the uncomfortable vibe of the young guys against the Big 3 of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce(notes) and Ray Allen(notes). For some Celtics, there was a sense that Rondo had prodded the younger teammates to speak out on the tough-love tactics of the vets.

Rondo never vented, but one teammate who had challenged K.G. later confessed privately that he wished he had never spoken up, that he didn’t even believe the whiny words tumbling out of his mouth. Rondo insists he had the best of intentions, and yet there’s no mistaking the fact the meeting served to widen a gulf between him and his older teammates.

It sounds like this is exactly the type of stuff Doc was talking about when he said some of the younger guys lost site of ubuntu last season.

In other words, Rondo's ego got the best of him, and it affected team chemistry.  No wonder Doc and Danny called him out on it.

I don't think this article was all that much of a positive for Rondo.  I guess I'm skeptical that a young player is really going to do a complete 180 in terms of attitude in one season.  If anything, this article just reaffirmed for me the things that Doc and Danny were complaining about.

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

[Roy Hobbs]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

[misterx2day]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

Well, its clear that Wojo thinks that Rondo was doing something he thought was in the best interest of the team, even if it wasn't. I agree with him. Nobody's gonna be perfect, especially a young point guard trying to come to grips with his constantly evolving role on a team with three hall of famers. I think that Rondo's intent was positive, and while it didn't work out, I don't think it tore the team apart or anything like that.

[pengaloo]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

I guess I don't see where Rondo says "eh..."

He said “It’s hard to play when guys have things on their chest. I think it’s best to get it off there. But obviously Doc thinks otherwise. ...A lot of guys said what they had to say, but I don’t know if it helped us or hurt us.” To me, that means Rondo had good intentions, but realized afterwards it may not have helped the team out. In the article, Rondo even admits that "I’ve got to mature a little more.”

Despite hating these kind of team meetings, Doc admits that the grievance session wasn't all bad, and that Rondo did learn from it:

Now, the Celtics coach thinks back to those embittered faces slogging off the team plane and an old point guard stands firm on a personal truth: He hates those team meetings.

“But to me, in some ways, it was a good thing,” Rivers said. “It got some things out there, and it allowed us to move forward over the summer.

“I think Rondo did learn. You do learn a lot of times by trial and error.”

Rather than focusing on Rondo, I guess I find all of this sort of reflects poorly on everybody. Transparency and communication are important for maintaining relationships. It seems to me this team last season couldn't speak honestly with each other without egos getting in the way.

[GKC]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

There's a negative vibe if you skip the last paragraph.
Does throughout the summer rondo having a great preseason and showing good leadership abilities, as well as showing no signs of being bothered by lack of extension talks, mean anything?

He could've pouted like LMA and forced a big contract out of it but didn't. That shows me a guy whose team first, even if he isn't being treated that well.

[Fan from VT]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

I don't know what happened, so I'm not blindly defending Rondo by any means, but:

Why did a meeting have to take place? Isn't one of Doc's jobs to be aware of interpersonal vibes on the team and build a positive atmosphere? I could definitely see that the Big 3 could be VERY difficult to play with as a young player. Obviously I love the Big 3, but they are not infallibly perfect. They are very competitive people, and I could definitely see them burning some bridges. Doc's job is to be there to stop schisms from developing and steer all the players toward a common goal.

[Mr October]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

There's a negative vibe if you skip the last paragraph.
Does throughout the summer rondo having a great preseason and showing good leadership abilities, as well as showing no signs of being bothered by lack of extension talks, mean anything?

He could've pouted like LMA and forced a big contract out of it but didn't. That shows me a guy whose team first, even if he isn't being treated that well.

Right, its a mixed bag. Positive intent gone wrong. Lesson hopefully learned. This season we'll see what Rondo's got, and see if it is worth keeping him as a cornerstone of the future.

[nickagneta]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

I don't know what happened, so I'm not blindly defending Rondo by any means, but:

Why did a meeting have to take place? Isn't one of Doc's jobs to be aware of interpersonal vibes on the team and build a positive atmosphere? I could definitely see that the Big 3 could be VERY difficult to play with as a young player. Obviously I love the Big 3, but they are not infallibly perfect. They are very competitive people, and I could definitely see them burning some bridges. Doc's job is to be there to stop schisms from developing and steer all the players toward a common goal.

So you are taking an article about Rondo calling a team meeting against the advice of Doc Rivers, how that meeting worked out, how it might demonstrate the PG's immaturity and need for growth and the reasons behind the C's shopping Rondo and turning it into a swipe at Doc?

I don't get it! I mean is Doc responsible for EVERYTHING that goes wrong with this team and not responsible for ANYTHING that goes right with this team? 

[snively]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

If this article counts as negative for Rondo, I look forward to the positive.  So he tried to hold a team meeting in which his teammates beat up on each other while he didn't say anything and that's accounted against his maturity? What about the maturity of Doc undercutting Rondo before it even began?  What about the maturity of the veterans getting into it with the younger players?  What about the maturity of the younger players who actually did the complaining?  

The most chilling accusation in the whole article was that Rondo might be too smart to follow the team agenda blindly.  

Rondo's main problem is that he's a cocky smart kid who feels he should be respected as a peer and even followed as a leader, only he's on a team with a well-established pecking order where he's 5th or 6th in line to be heard.  He could probably use a bit more social grace as well.

[nickagneta]

Interesting that the initial article mention that Rondo called the meeting to vent team "complaints" but that it "rapidly deteriorated into a grievance session that had the uncomfortable vibe of the young guys against the Big 3". Although the author says that Rondo prodded team mates into saying things negatively about the Big Three, he doesn't say outright that those were Rondo's intentions.

Important and overlooked in all this is that Rondo vented nothing during the meeting. Though others did, maybe what Rondo did was to try to get a forum together for his younger team mates to get their feelings out and not necessarily that those were his feelings. Maybe he felt that these feelings of his team mates were effecting their play and in return, the team's overall play and that they needed to be aired but no one was willing to air them so he took it upon himself to take the leadership role for the young guys and call the meeting.

I'm not saying that's what happened or even that's what I believed happened but it is a scenario that no one has brought up, though those supporting the theory that this was a good thing probably sees it in this light and probably just hasn't voiced it in this manner.

[Fan from VT]

I'm not sure how you're getting a negative vibe from this article, Roy. Its about Rondo seeing how the team was starting to falter a little without KG and wanting to try and fix it. But as a young player, he made mistakes in the way he went about doing it, but his intentions were for the good of the team. Its not as if he wanted to split the team apart; he wanted to get any issues out in the air so they could be resolved, it just ended up backfiring on him. But it taught him a lesson, I think, and he'll be a better leader for it in the future. He's certainly been great in terms of leadership this pre-season, and he is always joking around with the Big 3. All in all, this is a pretty positive article, even for Wojo, who is not afraid to be negative in the least.

I guess I'm not sure how anybody gets an overly positive tone from the article.  Wojo details a meeting that Doc very clearly thought hurt the team, and Rondo's reaction is "eh..."  We'll see how that translates to this season.

I don't know what happened, so I'm not blindly defending Rondo by any means, but:

Why did a meeting have to take place? Isn't one of Doc's jobs to be aware of interpersonal vibes on the team and build a positive atmosphere? I could definitely see that the Big 3 could be VERY difficult to play with as a young player. Obviously I love the Big 3, but they are not infallibly perfect. They are very competitive people, and I could definitely see them burning some bridges. Doc's job is to be there to stop schisms from developing and steer all the players toward a common goal.

So you are taking an article about Rondo calling a team meeting against the advice of Doc Rivers, how that meeting worked out, how it might demonstrate the PG's immaturity and need for growth and the reasons behind the C's shopping Rondo and turning it into a swipe at Doc?

I don't get it! I mean is Doc responsible for EVERYTHING that goes wrong with this team and not responsible for ANYTHING that goes right with this team? 

No, not a swipe at Doc. I'm actually trying NOT to pick a "Right" side. I'm just pointing out that we fans really like the Big Three, but that they've been known to, frankly, p--- people off, and I could definitely see playing with them as a young player being difficult.