The Rondo dilemma is simple: He was a great elite PG before his tragic ACL tear ruined both his play and trade value. I think the Rondo fence between supporters and skeptics of his talent was because of his very inconsistent play every single season. Sure, in the playoffs he was a top 10 player easy, but he had to bring that effort nightly to never have the type of divided fan-bases he himself created. He accomplished so many records (Magic/Oscar worthy) and one as a Celtics fan can be proud of those accolades as he did them wearing the green and white. I was always curious about Rondo's market value and when I saw Ainge accept that bad deal it made me realize that outside the realm of the Boston city there are actually PGs stacked in basically every team that would make Rondo invaluable on ability alone. Y'all can say he was a terrific floor general, a nightly triple-double threat, an assist king, but the holes in his games were too big to shun once he was considered the face of the team. He didn't have big brothers KG and Pierce (to an extent Allen) to hide his flaws and they were on full display as soon as he was named captain. That was what concerned me when he was asking for a max deal. Would we have been smart in giving him such a big contract and completely overlooking the same glaring weaknesses he has had for nine years? At 28 you would think he would be a respectable 70% FT shooter, but no he never improved. OK so that was one huge flaw, what about his strengths? Elite rebounder for a PG his size, uncanny court vision, insane dribbling and passing skills, majestic play-making abilities. He made a has been Shaq look like Laker Shaq! All of those strengths were not met and it was unlikely we would have been able to bring the talent to build around those strengths of his. Most FAs re-sign with their teams as they can get the most money and the majority of FAs on 2015 are probably staying put since their teams are actually contenders (Lamarcus, Gasol, DeAndre, etc). Ainge probably saw this and after missing out on Love as well decided it was best to move him and stop dwelling on holding on to him and overpay him money he clearly doesn't deserve, especially after those sub-par performances he was dishing out (2 point streak, lowest FT% and lowest FG% of his career, lowest PPG averages since his rookie year, 4th quarter woes, inability to take over games). He probably should have waited to see if Rondo would have picked up the slack and improved his game alongside his value and deal him on a more potent deal, but at the rate Rondo was going with his petty sad games it was probably going to be a stretch. He's on a team he can take a back-seat on and not worry about being something he's not, and that's a primary option; a superstar player that can win you a great deal of games, nationally televised or not.