Rondo got a good eal, Ainge made a nice salary read on the reality of who Rondo is at this point.
not who he is, but who he was
you're telling me in the open market this summer, he doesn't get a max deal from someone? If Rudy Gay and Joe Johnson get what they got, Rondo is a max guy...we got a steal
We paid him what he was worth at the time. I agree that Rondo, if he had waited, would have made more money this summer, but not Max, no way. In the end he and his agent chose job security, which at the time probably seemed like a very good idea considering how close he was to being traded because of his attitude.
It's silly to say that there's no way Rondo would have made the max when he was almost universally seen as the best player on a team that went to game 7 of the nba finals, and who was seen as one of the top playoff performers in 2010. I don't think he'd have heard "sure, you dominated Cleveland in the playoffs and many people thought you outplayed LeBron, but we won't pay you like a star until you can knock down the 18 footer".
Last summer there was a boatload of people here that either wouldn't have extended Rondo at all or would never have given him over $8M if they'd have given him more than the MLE at all. Many people judge him in part based on their view of him in 2008, but also based on what he can't do as opposed to what he can do or the effect he can have on a game.