Think he'd look good in a Blazer uni? I'd say YES! Apparently, he's enduring some type of fallout in beantown. From: HoopsVibe
wow what a dumbass now gms will be goin after rondo for peanuts probably haha blake/outlaw claver for rondo and a bad contract?!
I like Rondo's game (love it in fact), I think he's got top five point guard potential (top 3 even) and it looks like there's real opportunity to prise him loose for pennies on the dollar if you really pushed to get him ... but something I can't quite put my finger on, some gut level feeling tells me bringing him in could be a real disaster on a young team without a lot of strong veterans (like Allen, Garnett and Pierce in Boston). I'm not saying KP shouldn't get him, but you'd better be damn sure your roster has a strong enough identity of its own and strong enough locker room leaders to bring in a player that could end up being a net negative, despite all of his talent. This feels like a pass for me.
I'd love to acquire Rondo unless Pritchard and his staff felt that he simply couldn't co-exist with other people. I think Roy has established himself as enough of a leader and these players have been together enough that an outsider wouldn't be devisive. And Rondo's talent is big-time. Ultimately, though, I'd trust Pritchard's judgment on it, since I know nothing about Rondo the person.
Doc Rivers is no Sarge. Nate may not be heralded on the technical sides of the game, but he sure as hell can whip guys into line.
You have to consider it with Rondo but who could Portland offer them? I suppose Bayless, Outlaw and Martell? Something like that? I still feel like I prefer Sessions just because something about Rondo concerns me right now.
I think the problem is that the big three geezers all feel threatened by a young stud playing so well. They would probably rather he schlepped their bags, brought them donuts and let them dunk him in the ice tub. The fact that Ainge and Doc are throwing him under the bus just goes to show how affraid of losing their jobs they are if KG goes to the owner. They have to massage his balls as he was the one who won the title for them, saving their jobs. I would love it if Rondo told them to fuck off, trade me. Tell them he will never re-sign there. He has at least 24 other teams knowing he is an upgrade over their current starting PG.
This whole situation seems strange; sure , Ainge is maybe not the brightest GM around (although how many GM's have won a championship?) but why would he do such a stupid thing? What else is going on here? If there weren't also trade rumors, you might think it was a way to motivate, but there are those trade rumors, so what else could it be? Is he trying to entice trading partners by pointing out superficial problems that others think can be overcome? Is there really some other more substantial problem? Pure speculation of course, but something just doesn't feel right.
Do his teammates really hate him? Why'd Ainge say he cost him the series? He was INSANE in the playoffs, almost averaging a triple double. I think Boston lost because Orlando was a flat out better team. Boston barely beat the Chicago Bulls for crying out loud. Outlaw, Bayless, Blake, some draft picks, and our trade exception, for Rondo, Scalabrine, Tony Allen. We'd still have some money left over to get a vet like McDyess. Do you guys think Bayless could develop into a stronger Rajon Rondo type? They both struggle with their jump shot, but Bayless had a good one in college, whereas Rondo only shot 30% from 3pt range in college. He also was not very productive his rookie year(and shot just 41% from the field), but really came on in his 2nd.
Well you know what it's pretty easy to put up some numbers if you have talent and your selfish. What I am amazed about is that you can't read through the lines about Ainge's comments. Does Danny Ainge seem like the type of guy to you that would go out of his way to bad mouth a player? Did he ever do anything like that here in Portland? The answer is no. I'll give it to you that Rondo played very insane in the series. But he was also very selfish. Many times down the stretch he chose to make the Rondo play instead of the right play.
It really is unclear what Ainge thinks he's doing. Does he think he's Phil Jackson, master of the public slam to prod a player to work harder? If he does decide to offload Rondo, I would hope we'd be first in line. Or maybe we could engineer a three way: Rondo to Minny, Rubio to us, some of our non-big-three to Boston. They're one of the few teams that might actually see Steve Blake as an asset rather than a simple throw-in. And hasn't Ainge often been rumored to like Outlaw?
Even if Boston absolutely hates Rondo, they aren't going to give him away. No combination of Blake, Outlaw, Martell, + draft picks is going to bring back a guy who really is better then all of that put together. The very least I could see Boston taking would be Rudy + Batum + Bayless. Even then they would probably say no. They are going to want a young borderline super star for Rondo. Portland doesn't have one it can afford to trade.
http://greenstreet.weei.com/sports/...6/26/danny-ainge-rajon-rondo-on-the-big-show/ http://greenstreet.weei.com/sports/...tics/2009/06/26/danny-were-not-trading-rondo/
GM talk. Kevin Pritchard said over and over that we weren't trading Zach Randolph. "He's a huge part of our future," he told ESPN. A week later Zach was a New York Knick.
The ONLY evidence for this is direct from Doc Rivers, and it doesn't say his current ones do. Rivers said that in Rondo's rookie year (when the Celtics were shit) he took Rondo aside because he was being very intolerant of his teammates screw ups and told him "you do know that your teammates hate playing with you"? And as Rivers told it, Rondo was shocked and really changed his ways. Some web site recently pulled up that reference and splashed a "RONDO'S TEAMMATES HATE HIM!" headline, with only that old story as evidence. Worked on hasoos, apparently. I would like to know what Ainge ACTUALLY said. It's implied that he implied it. And that's a double implication, so it may cancel itself out. Well, that second part is pretty damning. But then again, it wasn't like Ray Allen (for example) wasn't getting shots... But any time a team has to give serious minutes to Brian Scalabrine is in trouble. Erm... No. Rajon Rondo is a physical freak: his arms are ridiculously long and he has HUGE hands (which is probably part of his shooting struggles). A player who has the physical tools to be the next Rondo is Brandon Jennings, but he's even slighter.
