Yeah, you're right... I mean not like we would have lost to the Sixers had Rondo not stepped up in game 7...
Oh and try to do it himself? What does that even mean? He was the leader of the team throughout the playoffs and he did an excellent job. Just because the refs cheated us out of his 44 pt game 2 and we lost the series in 7 games does not mean its his fault... he kept us in that series. Hell we were in the ECF because of his BIG PLAYS.
I don't even know what to say...
You are seriously undermining KG and his Vintage 20/10 playoff performance. Rondo and KG combined stepped up big time to will us to game 7 of the ECF. You're absolutely right that Rondo's play was critical to that run, but Garnett's was just as critical, if not more when you factor in the impact he had on defense.
Every time Rondo had an average game KG had a huge one, and vice versa.
BUT that still doesn't change the fact that what the OP said is generally correct. Boston are playing Rondo the big bucks to give his all every night, not just in the big games that people watch. As I've said before, Rondo's playoff play means precisely nothing if we don't actually make the playoffs.
Rondo makes about $10 million a year, which is approximately 10x what the CEO of large enterprise makes and about 100x what a good doctor or a senior IT project manager makes.
That's a LOT of money, and if you're getting that much you BETTER put in 110% effort every night. I know everybody has bad games, but if you look at the truly elite players in history (Kobe, Jordan, Bird, etc) those guys never played a single game with any less than 100% effort. KG and PP, even at their current ages, still play with that mentality - even if they play bad, you can never question how hard they tried.
I'm see the same right now in Lee, Bradley, Collins, Barbosa and Sullinger...and I saw that same attitude last season from Marquis and Pietrus. Those guys always played HARD.
I respect a player who lacks talent but tries his best, more than I respect a player who has supreme talent but takes games off.