He is the cornerstone of the Boston Celtics' future.
More specifically, right now he is the Celtics' future.
Is there any wonder why the Celtics just locked up Rajon Rondo for a new contract worth $55 million?
Do the math.
Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce all are on the back nine of their NBA careers. So is Rasheed Wallace. Which essentially leaves Kendrick Perkins as the future.
And Rondo, of course, this one-time 21st pick who has become infinitely better than anyone ever expected.
There's no overstating this, for no one could have predicted this back there in 2006 when he was a sophomore at Kentucky. He was a kid who had had problems with coach Tubby Smith, seemingly couldn't hit two jumpers in a row if his life depended on it, and was considered virtually "uncoachable." One of those know-it-all kids who thought he was better than he was. One of those kids who undoubtedly would have benefited from staying in school.
That was the knock on him back then, and like all labels that eventually get passed along like a rumor, that was the baggage that was following him into the 2006 draft.
But he had one important advocate back then: Danny Ainge.
"Danny was always calling me for daily updates on him," says Mike Procopio, who was working for the Celtics at the time monitoring college and overseas players. "Danny liked him the whole year."
Good for Danny.
For Rondo was a great pick, someone who a lot of teams passed on until the Celtics traded for him after Phoenix had taken him with the 21st pick. But in the beginning, that first year, no one was really too sure what the Celtics had. For Rondo is not your classic point guard, someone who seemingly had been raised watching old game tapes of older-time greats. That first year he was more like a great athlete playing point guard, all of this in a skinny 6-foot body, someone who still looks like some kid who snuck into the arena.
All that and he couldn't shoot.
That first year he split time with both Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair. It was a team going nowhere, and Rondo was just another young player in a league that all but eats its young. In a perfect basketball world, he would have been a junior at Kentucky and there were a lot nights when he played like it. He certainly didn't have the offensive skills to carry a bad team, not even close, not a non-shooting point guard without a lot of talent around him.
The next year he was the starter, but it had become a different world. Kevin Garnett. Ray Allen. A healthy Paul Pierce. They were the new Big Three, and it was as though Rondo was just along for the ride, his job essentially to get the ball to them, play some defense, and basically stay out of the way.
In retrospect, it was the perfect basketball laboratory for a young player. He wasn't being asked to be one of the centerpieces of the team, like Chris Paul and Derrick Rose had been asked to do as young players. He wasn't in the middle of the microscope in ways that lottery picks are. He was allowed to develop at his own pace, almost in the shadows.
All that, and an NBA title to boot.
It was last year that was his breakthrough season, especially in the postseason, where he almost averaged a triple double, an amazing feat for someone his size.
But even with all that, there was a certain controversy that surrounded Rondo last spring, the behind-the-scenes word that he was derisively referred to by some of the veterans as "Rondo Superstar," the feeling that he could be difficult. It supposedly was one of the reasons why he was rumored to be on the trading block, the unarticulated feeling that he wanted huge money and, ultimately, he might not be worth it.
There's little question Rondo can be a problematic personality. Sunday night was a small example, his in-game jawing with Chris Paul being one of the sub-plots of the game.
But there is the awareness that Rondo is one of the great young point guards in the NBA, a freak athlete who keeps getting better and better. His new contract is a testimony to that.
And if there's no question that he benefits from being on a great team, one that spreads the floor and allows him space to take advantage of his great quickness, he now routinely puts up numbers that are a testimony to his versatility. His signing also enables the Celtics to assure themselves of a talented young point guard for years to come, not the easiest of things to acquire.
And if he's never going to be a classic shooter, his shooting figures to get better as his career evolves. He also figures to mature, for he will be only 24 in February, still a very young player. Everything else he has: the vision, the explosiveness, the ability to pass. Most of all, he has the rare ability to take an NBA game and make it look easy, a quality only the great ones have.
Rondo Superstar?
Almost.
And certainly one of the cornerstones of the Celtics' future.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The Providence JournalColumn
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