To be completely honest, I do think asking whether or not Rajon Rondo makes this team better is a legitimate question.
This team played great basketball against the Bulls the other day without him. The team has certainly been able to step up and win games in his absence before. People like to point at the better record without him in the past couple of seasons. Personally, I discount the 2013-2014 season as it was a lost season anyway by the time he returned, and Rondo's focus clearly seemed to be on rehabbing his knee and getting back into shape.
2013 is a different story. He was hands down our best player to start the season, but the team actually had a better record after he went down with his knee injury. There were a lot of other factors involved, as many have pointed out, but still, this reality didn't look good for Rondo.
The thing to me, though, about Rondo is that he has an extra gear that no one else on this roster (and very few players in the league as a whole, for that matter) has. He has shown the ability to play like a superstar when it's needed the most in the playoffs and in big regular season games.
The above, to me, is way more valuable of an asset than many are giving it credit for. He may not bring his A game every game, but when he does bring it, his A game rivals any of the top dozen or so players in the league.
As good as this team looked the other night without Rondo in that great win over the Bulls, I would hate to see this team enter a playoff series without the services of Rajon Rondo. He's a difference maker, pure and simple. As much as I like Kelly Olynyk, Jared Sullinger, Jeff Green, and Avery Bradley, they aren't difference makers in the way that Rajon Rondo is.
I've grown to accept that there are always going to be fans (or anti-fans) who make a game out of pointing out the flaws of Rajon Rondo and putting them under a microscope. In some ways that's fine. That's the kind of treatment top players inevitably get. It comes with the territory.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Rondo handles all of this going forward. I'm going to bet on him to succeed and further cement his Celtics legacy as one of the greats of this franchise over the latter half of his career.
We shall see.