i would have held on to rondo and take our chances with a sign and trade or wait for a better offer pre-trade deadline. i didn't like the return from the mavs then, and i like it less now - brandan wright is a decent role player on a good/great team, and he was the freaking centerpiece. he can't even get much burn here. garbage return. would have preferred keeping rondo and trade him later. i mean, honestly, would the return have been much worse? arguable.
Depends on where he would sign and how much salary they need us to eat in order to fit Rondo on their cap.
Most likely destinations for Rondo if he reached free agency would probably have been the Lakers and the Knicks and both of them would have plenty of cap space and wouldn't need to do a sign and trade, they would just sign him outright although the Knicks probably wouldn't have minded us taking Calderon in return with a protected future pick allowing them a bit more space to add a second piece and getting rid of a player that Rondo makes redundant. The Lakers who have almost all of their roster expiring this season wouldn't even have use for that.
The likely return for Rondo if he reached FA was 0 and if we did get something, it would be at most the equivalent of the first we got from Dallas. So we are short, the 2nd rounder (basically nothing), Crowder who I really like as a 9th or 10th guy in the rotation with some future upside (DeMarre Carroll?), Wright who we still may turn into another pick, and the value of consolidating and adding to our smaller exceptions.
It wasn't a great haul, but it's the best we can do and certainly better than if we let him walk in FA. Like it or not, that's what Rondo's trade value was.
