Busy right now, so if anyone could run the numbers on Rondo's max deal that'd be killer -- always better to use real numbers instead of "the max."
He's eligible for 30% of the cap in his first year of the deal (aka next season), which is ~$17,695,000, with a 7.5% raise on the first year added each season (so he's getting a 1,327,125 raise each season at the most).
I can do the math in a hot minute, but deadlines call.
I already posted them earlier. A max deal, assuming about a 5% increase in the salary cap, will start near $19 million, with raises near $900k for other teams trying to sign him. So about 4 years, $82 million. Someone will offer that, guaranteed. Celtics can offer significantly more, although I don't think they should need to offer more than an option year for year 5.
The caveat is that's assuming about a 5% increase in the cap, which is in line with expectations if they do not stagger in the revenue from the new TV deal a year early. The TV deal could raise the cap by about 40% in two years from where it is now. If they do include some of the new money (which would require negotiations from the players association), the cap could rise up to about 20%, which would greatly alter the landscape, as max deals would be more, but likely a few more teams would have money to spend.
If the cap doesn't include any of the new TV money until 2016, the Celtics should just keep Rondo at the max. In 2016, his contract would be for $20 million against a cap near $90 million, which would be the equivalent of a $14 million salary against today's $63 million cap. In 2017, the players will opt out of the CBA and likely get a larger share of revenue split, thus increasing the cap again. A max deal next year might be a bit of an overpay, but the rest of the years it will be a relative bargain.