He's a 4 time allstar, but he's limited in certain areas and not a "superstar" like LeBron, Durant... or Kobe, Duncan and KG in their prime. He's coming off a major injury and will have a ton of competition in the coming years. Does he continue to make the all-star game when D-Rose gets back?... In the East alone there is Holiday, Wall (22 on the rise), Rose, Irving, Deron Williams.
Maybe.
I see him as a Chaucey Billups type (5 straight all-star appearances). Good player... can be a key part of a title team if he's surrounded by other great players. BUt you wouldn't have built a franchise around Chauncey Billups. And building a team around Rondo doesn't make sense.
After KG and Pierce leave... this team will no longer be a contender. That's a fact. It's not even a contender now with them... we're a 7th seed team and we might get thrashed in round 1. To win a championship you need an elite big man and an elite scorer. Generally every champion has a top 5 player. Rondo is definitely not on that level. He might not even be a top 5 point guard after this season.
So how do you become a contender again? Well, you can try desperately to land a top 5 player. Chris Paul and Howard might qualify... they are both unrestricted free agents, but we don't have cap space and they aren't going anywhere. LeBron is a free agent in 2014... good luck with that.
Who in the league right now is likely to reach that level? Maybe Irving? Maybe Anthony Davis. I can't see Boston landing either.
I'm hearing a ton of people saying that Andrew Wiggins (currently in High school) is the greatest prospect since LeBron James... which is saying something, because Kevin Durant was as can't-miss as a prospect gets.
So what i'm saying is... the bottom line is that the most likely scenario of us landing a top 5 player (and becoming a contender) is tanking next season and lucking into Andrew Wiggins. The odds are severely limited. But you have 0% chance of getting Durant. You have 0% chance of getting LeBron. You have 0% chance of getting Irving. You have 0% chance of getting Anthony Davis. If we had one of the 5 worst records in the league, we'd have a 10% chance of landing Wiggins. It's tiny, but it's more than anything else.
That's your best and only option for building a contender. So say we managed to tank... say we managed to luck into Andrew Wiggins. Say we managed to do all of this while holding onto Rajon Rondo. Rondo would be 29 years old Wiggins rookie year.
If Wiggins follows the same developmental path as Durant, the Celtics wouldn't be a playoff team again until his 3rd season... Rondo would be 31 years old. If Wiggins follows the same developmental path as Durant, they wouldn't be a serious contender until his 5th year.. by then Wiggins would be 24 and Rondo would be 33 years old and on his way out. I'd rather have other young players to surround Wiggins with.
You could also just wait for Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis to become free agents. If they hit free agency at all, it will not be for another 5 or 6 years.
TL;DR: Rondo doesn't fit into a "rebuild". Our best-case scenario is that we'll be a contender again in 2018 built around a top 5 superstar (Andrew Wiggins) ... by then Rondo would be 33 years old on past his prime. Far more likely that we will not be a contender again until the 2020s...
That is a well written and thoughtful post, but there are some major flaws in the "top five player or bust" plan. It sounds like a truism that you need a top five player, and I understand that it's one that many have hitched their wagon to. However, you are failing to look realistically at the lay of the land, regarding the top players in today's NBA.
When you look at the top players in the NBA, there are a couple of levels. The first level consists of Lebron James. He's is clearly playing at a level by himself. In the next tier below him is Kevin Durant. Below that is a third level which consists of a considerably larger group of players who are stars, or players with the potential to be stars, but no one who looks likely to challenge to be in the James or Durant category. Rajon Rondo is a member of that third tier of players, along with guys like Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin, James Harden, Carmelo Anthony, LaMarcus Aldridge, Tony Parker, Derrick Rose and possibly guys like Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, and John Wall. It's a large list so I didn't include everybody.
The debates over who belongs on that third list and where on the list they belong is sure to not reach anything approaching a consensus in the near future. Some guys will have seasons where they move up the list, others will have seasons where they fall off the list.
Now, we look at Andre Wiggins. I've read the scouting reports and seen the videos. There is no doubt that the kid looks mighty impressive. But, he's eighteen years old and still in high school. I have no doubt that he has the talent to join that long third tier list fairly quickly upon entering the NBA, but I don't think there's any guarantee that he'll join that list above that's inhabited by only Lebron James and Kevin Durant.
Even if Wiggins were to join that top tier and challenge Durant and James for the title of Best Player in the Game within five years or so, there's only one chance at him, and the likelihood of winning that lottery is really small. If you put all your eggs in that basket and then fail to get your guy, you have effectively screwed the franchise's chances to be a contender for the foreseeable future.
Ainge has started to gather some good pieces around Rondo for the near future. The job's not complete with Bradley, Green, and Sullinger, but there's a better chance of continuing to build this young core into a contender around Rondo than there is in landing Andre Wiggins and waiting for him to turn into the "transcendent superstar" that he's already being pegged as at eighteen years of age.
I'd rather take my chances rebuilding around Rondo. Of course, there's no guarantee that we'll ever win another title with him, but I don't see any better options out there for securing number 18 in the future. To be frank, your scenario is way more of a pipe dream than following the path that Danny has already begun for rebuilding this team.
