I don't even know anymore. Rondo puts up some pretty impressive stats. He's averaging nearly a triple double. He's my favorite player on the team. I'd like to keep watching him. I just have two long-standing concerns.
#1 - If we have another season like last year (25-30 wins) and let Rondo to reach free agency, I don't think Boston is the frontrunner to sign him.
#2 - I think Rondo needs a specific system and collection of talent put in place in order for the team to be successful. He does some things super well (running an offense and finding open men), but I still wonder how much his negatives negate his positives. For three years we've seen evidence to suggest that removing Rondo from the equation doesn't negatively impact the team nearly as much as people assume. We watched as Rondo got injured and then the sub .500 Celtics rallied to make the playoffs. We very clearly saw the team start sharing the ball and watched as Paul Pierce was able to pick up the slack. Last year, the team went 6-24 with him on the court... which would have been a 16 win pace. We saw how having a mildly competent shooter like Jordan Crawford out there seemed to cancel out the negative effects of missing Rondo's playmaking ability. Last night, we watched as Evan Turner and Marcus Thornton (neither of which have Rondo's play-making ability) were able to cancel out the ill effects by making shots. Scalabrine even commented on air that the spacing was better than it had been all season. We can choose to ignore this stuff... and some of Rondo's greatest supporters will be quick to bash these anecdotes as nonsensical. Maybe they are right. I don't know. It's just interesting. I asked a hypothetical question on the forum recently... what would happen if you replaced Rondo with Roy Hibbert? Rondo is widely considered to be a better player, I seem to think that elite post defense is a more important skill than elite passing. The lone answer I received was that the team would be much worse. I'm not sure that's true, though. I think it depends on what other players you have on the team. Rondo is an awesome player... I don't think you could simply add him to any team and watch them get better, though.
All that said, we've surrounded Rondo with 4 guys who can shoot (Bradley, Green, Sully and Oly). From an offense standpoint, this might be a pretty good roster for Rondo to play with.