OMG. So lemme get this straight. Rondo tells Rivers to go eff himself during a team meeting and people still take Rondo's side? I agree that Rivers probably could have handled it better but doesnt that say more about how uncoachable Rondo is? Get this guy out of here. He's a punk. And the funny part is people want to pair this guy up with Josh Smith who is an equally volatile punk. That's a recipe for disaster.
Trade Rondo. Draft someone like Schroeder. Start fresh. Rondo clearly isnt leading this team to anything.
Rondo's already led the team to something. Start with all the way to game 7 of the ECF last year. Saying he won't lead the team anywhere is like saying he'll never be an all-star. Again, I'd like to know when the incident happened, some of the Rondo/Doc clashes have been reported well after they happened like they were recent events. And I think that people are looking at this in a vacuum, I doubt that dropping an f-bomb during a meeting is the worst thing that ever happens in the nba. This blog has had tons of posts in favor of trades for players that have gotten coaches fired. If you don't want players that have done worse than swear at a coach in a meeting you're going to be a perennial bottom feeder.
Several people here are saying things like this as if it was all Rondo taking us as far as we went last year, and nobody else did anything.
KG had a MONSTER playoffs last year and had at least as much to do with our deep run as Rondo did.
Not taking anything away from Rondo's play as he was fantastic, but it wasn't all him. Our role players (Marquis, Pietrus, Dooling, etc) came up huge in some of those games too. Pierce and Ray...not so much.
It wasn't all Rondo who led us to game seven of the ECF in '12 and to game seven of the finals in '10. Of course it wasn't. Kevin Garnett played a huge role in those playoff runs, as did Paul Pierce. And, yes, there were role players who stepped up and had some big moments as well.
I still think it's fair to say that Rondo led the team on those runs. I guess it can be debated who led the team more, Rondo or Garnett. He was, arguably, our best player, though. It's like arguing between Parker and Duncan this year, or Bryant and Gasol in 09 and 10. Or, it's like arguing between George and Hibbert on this year's Pacers team. Unfortunately for Russell Westbrook, he has never led his team anywhere because he plays with Kevin Durant, who is clearly the on-court leader of that team.
Rondo's a great player who is capable of taking the team on his shoulders and being the best player on the court on any given night, regardless of who else is on the court with him. The fact that he doesn't do it every game--not even in the playoffs--doesn't take away from that. Nobody, and I mean
nobody, brings his A game every single game. That doesn't mean that every NBA superstar is lazy and only brings it when he feels like it. It means it's virtually impossible to dominate every single quarter of every single game when opposing defenses are geared towards stopping you.
Rondo's resume, particularly his playoff resume, ought to speak for itself. Apparently, though, it doesn't among a large contingent of Celtics fans. They expect him to be even better, even more consistently. The lack of ability to place his game in context among the league's other elite players is understandable. He's the leader of
our team. We don't care that the likes of Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Tony Parker, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade, Steph Curry, etc. have all put up some stinkers in the playoffs, have run out of gas, have been taken off their games. They're not Celtics. On the other hand, we don't call them all bums when they have their subpar moments. It's easier for many fans to sit back and admire the moments of greatness and ignore the moments of not-so-greatness for other teams' stars. I get it. I do.
I'm just trying to inject a little reality into the situation here, though, to ask people to use some context when they think about how good players are or aren't. And, in context, Rondo has been one of the best. If you are one of those fans where your eyesight test can only show you the negatives in Rondo's game (and, of course, there are negatives--as there are with every player, the perfect player doesn't exist), then, look instead at the numbers. His playoff numbers over the course of the last four playoffs that he's participated in don't lie. Those numbers say he's among the league's very best, and that's because he is.
In response to the inevitable shouts of "yeah, but, he can't shoot," or "yeah, but, he gambles too much on defense," or "yeah, but, he's only great because he plays with other great players," I'll just remind you that all players come with some "yeah buts."
So, for those who desperately want to trade Rondo away in the hopes that that "perfect player," the one who leads us to decades of NBA dominance is going to be coming down the pike some time in the near future, I can only say, good luck with that.
Personally, I'd rather keep the star player that we already have.
