His value may go up, and it could just as easily plummet even lower as time goes by. The unfortunate truth (to me at least) is that right now, there probably isn't much of a market for him because of his injury recovery and contract situation. If he had 2 seasons left on his deal and he'd just come back from surgery, he'd be worth waaaayyyy more, even with the injury recovery. Problem is that he's an expiring contract who's openly talked about free agency and the 'experience' of being a free agent that he wants to try. We haven't seen good old Rondo for exactly 18 months. One and a half years.
He's 28 years and six months old on a bargain contract, approaching his prime, while our team appears to be at least 2-3 years away from being a contender. Adding stars to this roster is not going to be easy. We are one of many teams who'll be going after the free agents of Rondo's class including Rondo. ' He came back midway through last season and averaged his typical 11 to 12 points, 9.8 assists and 5.5 rebounds per game.... but was a lesser player in nearly every aspect. He shot just 40.3 percent from the field, including an abhorrent 32.7 percent outside five feet. He lost 7 percent from his jump shot conversion rate from 2012-13 to 2013-14.'
'Going further, underlying numbers indicate Rondo was even worse than the standard stats. Synergy Sports ranked him in the ninth percentile among players league-wide on a per-possession basis. He made 42.1 percent on shots out of the pick-and-roll, turning the ball over on more than 22 percent of his possessions.'
Much more distressing was Rondo's play on the defensive end, which oscillated between pretty bad and downright dreadful. Prone to fits of jumpiness and mistakes rooted in over-aggressiveness before his injury, Rondo was all over the place at times following his return. Opposing guards killed Rondo by coaxing him into poor position early in the possession and having him run right into screens on the pick-and-roll.
In his 998 minutes on the floor, the Celtics allowed 110.3 points per 100 possessions. In his 2,948 minutes on the bench, that number dropped to 103.5.
There are myriad problems with using lineup stats to judge an individual player's defensive impact, but the numbers are far from a coincidence. ESPN's DRPM metric had Rondo 361st among the 437 players ranked; he had the same defensive rating as Nick Young. His win shares per 48 minutes were the lowest of his career, per Basketball-Reference.
The injury is enormous (in a bad way), and approaching 30 years old for his next big contract, his shooting which was already questioned, has gotten worse, and his stats have gotten worse. The speculation is that he wants a max contract too. How many teams in the NBA want to pay Rondo a maximum deal after his recent half season? I'm not saying he won't get better- but we still haven't seen it, and that scares trade partners. The circumstances just aren't on the Celtics or Rondos side.
I personally believe he can come back to 90%, but he needs god players around him. He needs good shooters and good finishers to utilize his god given ability.
You're right in that this upcoming season is the chance to erase that last 6 months of playing while rehabilitating, but it's going to take a good 3-4 months for people to accept that he can be the player he once was. And by then we'll already be half way through season and he'll be closer to approaching the 'courting' of free agency that he's spoken about.
Either way Tim's got his panties in a twist as usual at the suggestion of Rondo being traded- like it's completely ridiculous to even suggest that we look at options for moving him considering the circumstances of the Celtics organization.
For this organization to come close to winning a championship with Rondo, we are going to have to get VERY lucky and two things MUST happen.
1) Rondo must AT LEAST return to his former self, or an even better overall, complete player
2) Danny Ainge must find him multiple top 15-20 NBA players to partner with him within the next 2-3 years.
He may have one in Marcus Smart, and he may have a top 25/All Star player in Sullinger, but it's going to take an incredible amount of good fortune to have even one of those must have scenarios to occur. What are the real chances of both of those things happening? Maybe 30 percent if we're being honestly generous?
If Danny decides that Rondo is part of the future I'll be stoked. I love Rondo.
But if he weighs up all his options and determines that becoming a championship team during Rondo's prime is unlikely, then I'll understand if we have to let him go.
He's not worth anything great on the trade market now, so lets hope he gets back to his former self this season, and proves that he can be a top 3 player on a championship team again.
I really hope he can.
No need to convince me that Rondo played like doggy do-do last season. I'm in agreement there. That's why I think his value is not particularly high right now.
I guess the debate hinges more on what the chances are of him being able to return to his pre-injury form. As of now, that's an unknown. My hopes are bolstered by the fact that even while playing in what Rondo clearly saw as a rehab stint last season, he still managed to put up decent numbers.
Also, he won't have the luxury of treating this coming season as another rehab stint. He's in a contract year, and if he wants anywhere near the maximum amount of dollars for his next contract, he's going to have to go out and earn that this season.
So, what we have is a guy who has proven in the past that he can be a great player, who's value is probably at the lowest it's been since his first couple of years in the league, who has something to prove.
This could very well be a recipe for a very good season out of Rajon Rondo.
To me, trading him right now for unproven prospects has a higher chance of not working out than holding on to him and seeing how he responds to the adversity of the last couple of seasons.
If, indeed, it turns out that his best years are behind him, we will be able to either re-sign him in free agency at a much lower rate than the maximum, or we simply let him walk to a team that gives him a better offer. The latter isn't the worst thing in the world. We'd gain some cap space, and we'd continue the rebuilding.
To me, the worst case scenario would be trading him now for a package of unproven picks and prospects only to see him come out and play like an all star for somebody else next season. I don't want to see Danny take that risk. I'd rather keep him and root for him to play like the top three point guard in the league that we've all seen him perform as in the past. If he can accomplish that, then we are in a much better position moving forward, whether we ultimately end up keeping him for the long haul or trading him for much more value than we could get right now.
Topic: If we were to trade Rondo to sacramento what would we want back. (Read 40494 times)