i'd respect Rondo way more if he came right out and said he wanted this team to get some players in here.
true leaders do this imo. pierce did similar things in '07. it's the guys that speak up that get things done. the one's that keep quiet and try to just go with the flow and be the "team guy" that get nothing.
look at tom brady, team guy his whole career, stays in line and all that and now look at him. in the 10 plus yrs. he's been the starter only 3 of those have they actually went out and gotten him help. this yr. you'd think he kicked Krafts' dog or something because it looks like they're trying to get him killed.
Well said Warrior!
I had so much respect for Pierce back in 06 and 07 when he was speaking out about wanting better players on the team or he would welcome a trade out of Boston.
That essentially led to Danny Ainge getting off his as* and doing something.
I think Rondo has certainly hinted that he would like better players but I would become his biggest fan if he came out and said:
"Look, either try to get me players to help us compete for a championship OR trade me. It's that simple!"
Do you guys honestly think that Danny Ainge needed Pierce' frustrated comments to motivate him to pull off the Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett trades?
He worked for several years to build up to those moves -- starting well before Pierce' comments.
Considering that we have pretty much zero idea what any of these guys are saying to each other behind closed doors, it seems silly to be holding them to any standard over what they "haven't said".
I don't know that and you don't know that either.
For all we know, Ainge was going to let the team flush down the toilet for several more years
or he was going to trade Pierce and go with the full board youth movement.
No one really knows.
What I _know_ is that Ainge had slowly been acquiring various tradable assets for several years and had signed Pierce to a large long-term extension. All signs pointed towards trading a large wad of those assets in order to acquire top talent to play with Pierce. Not to wait for those assets to hopefully mature into stars to play with Pierce in his old age. And if he had wanted to trade Pierce he could have done it before the big contract.
Ainge also knew well in advance that KG would be a potential acquisition target based on the state of his contract. Every piece that Danny ended up trading for KG was under his control a full season before it happened.
Ray Allen was the only real part that was somewhat of a 'target of opportunity' because that only became possible because (a) Seattle decided to blow it up and (b) we had tanked due to Pierce, Tony Allen and others missing huge chunks of the 2006-07 season. (Though it could be argued that acquiring Allen was only made necessary
because we had tanked. Ray was acquired to make the team look competitive enough to entice KG. If we had not tanked (i.e. Pierce & Tony had not gotten hurt) we likely would have looked a lot more competitive even without Ray.)
I'm not asserting that Danny could know for certain that he was going to be able to get KG or any particular 'star' well in advance. But the idea that he wasn't already fully committed to acquiring top star talent if and when it was within reach without needing a "kick in the pants" from his star player strikes me as nuts. That's his job. Like him or not, Danny Ainge has been hyper-competitive in everything he has done professionally, from college athletics, to pro baseball & NBA player, coach and executive.
And similarly, judging Rondo on whether he has or hasn't publicly complained about the roster also strikes me as nuts.
If Rondo
HAD whined about the lack of stars around him I'm pretty sure someone on CelticsBlog would be ripping him for doing so.