Sacramento Kings: A Letter In Defense Of Rajon Rondo

This offseason, perhaps no team has had it worse than the Sacramento Kings. They’ve been poor in recent seasons, and management seems to not know which direction to take the team in. Which has led to the likes of Wesley Matthews and Corey Brewer reportedly turning down more money from the Kings to sign elsewhere already during this free agency period.

More than that, forward Derrick Williams has also reportedly joined the New York Knicks, while the uncertain future of DeMarcus Cousins with this team and constant chatter have many feeling he’s destined to be traded at some point sooner rather than later. Among all of this however, the team had to do something to try and desperately keep fans on board.

ALSO ON HOOPSHABIT: 50 Greatest NBA Players Without a Championship

So they turned to enigmatic point guard Rajon Rondo, with the two sides apparently agreeing terms on a one-year deal worth roughly $9.5 million.

Before going any further, we need to also stress how the Kings went about getting Rondo for at least one season in the most Kings way possible. Rondo’s stock is at an all-time low after his disastrous stint with the Dallas Mavericks, and in reality he hasn’t been the same player since tearing his ACL while with the Boston Celtics in early 2013.

So, as far as we know, the Kings were bidding against nobody but themselves in getting their man, a former All-Star. So moving Carl Landry, Jason Thompson and Nik Stauskas in a salary dump to the Philadelphia 76ers before getting Rondo (and they will hope, some more players of note) was kind of strange.

Adding a top-10 protected pick to the deal could be borderline disastrous down the road. In any event, the players were moved, and others passed on Sacramento, leaving them in a tough spot.

Here  we are though, with Rondo set to don the purple of the Kings next season. Is it a good move? Many will say no, and with good reason. Rondo is a thorny character, and he flat out quit on his Mavericks teammates towards the end of his tenure there. He clashed with head coach Rick Carlisle too, and generally was the main reason they exited the postseason in a whimper.

At this point I’m going to need to stop here however, and make one thing clear. From here on out I’ll be (trying my best) to defend Rondo. He has a ton of people on his back right now, and his style of play may even be outdated. But I still truly believe he can be meaningful player in this league.

Would that require an attitude change and spending a summer working on his jump shot? It would certainly help, but among all the bad press he’s gotten since the Celtics began to disband, try and remember the good times.

This is the same player who, while in some memorable playoff battles against LeBron James and his Miami Heat teams, was the best player on the court. This was the guy who made everybody better, who could unlock a defense like nobody else in this league while also locking down opponents in a vice like grip.

That guy still exists inside of him somewhere, it just might take some time to locate him once again.

This is also the guy who once dislocated his elbow (not for the squeamish), got it re-set and came back to play on. You could argue that him coming back was actually detrimental to his team, he was effectively playing with one arm.

But in terms of giving his team a boost, it has to rank up there with Willis Reed and Isiah Thomas before him, playing on through serious injury and willing his team to victory. That was heroic, not something everybody could do, and he has that within him when he’s bothered.

Being bothered though, that’s a key phrase as Rondo enters next season with his new team. He must surely realize he’s in danger of falling out of the league entirely if this experiment goes badly, and so the hope is that he will respond accordingly.

At one point in time he was a top-five defensive guard in the entire league, but before the end of his tenure with the Celtics, the team that drafted him, he stopped giving his all on that end. Rather, he didn’t give much of anything.

He’ll arrive in Sacramento to what could well be a bad locker room vibe given how poorly the Kings are moving forward, and there’s every chance he could get sucked into that environment. But if he were to rise above it, to put up modest numbers but also clearly be trying once again, observers may sit up and take notice once more.

In some ways this one-year deal is like an audition to get back onto a more established roster next season, and it’s an opportunity he can’t mess up.

In some ways, I’d liken it to Lance Stephenson going to the Los Angeles Clippers in that this is a low risk, high reward move for all involved. The Kings had the cap room to make this move (while still having roughly $10 million left at the time of writing) and don’t have to commit to him long term.

If they’re being honest, they know already they won’t be in the playoffs next season anyway, the Western Conference is too competitive. So why not take a flyer on a proven winner?

It’s certainly high risk for Rondo, but is also low risk in the sense that there’s zero expectation that he’ll do anything with the team, so anything positive he does do would be a bonus. It being a one-year deal, if it’s a success he can also leave, another low-risk factor in that he doesn’t have to spend the remainder of his career with this team if all goes well.

Look, I’m a big fan of Rondo, and have been for years, this is clear. Watching him (big stretch coming but try to stay with me here) was kind of like seeing a Magic Johnson-type player for my generation. Rondo is nowhere near as talented as Johnson and never will be, I don’t mean it in that way.

But those passes Rondo would pull off, they were “Showtime” and that’s the best way to describe them. I remember some of those passes (against the Memphis Grizzlies) and behind the back fakes (Atlanta Hawks) than I do who actually scored off of his assists. He had elements of Jason Williams to his game as well, and I just loved that mix.

Coincidentally, it was against Williams that Rondo provided my favorite moment of his career to date.

Come on. That hustle, so few players commit like that, it just needs to be coaxed out of Rondo once more. Finally, and on a more league wide note, Rondo’s performance here could shape the destiny and future of similar players in this league and also the college ranks.

Live Feed

FanSided

Rondo is unique, (fantastic at probing in the paint, superb passing and IQ, no real consistent jump shot of any kind) but there are players out there who have similarities.

Elfird Payton of the Orlando Magic and Dennis Schroder of the Atlanta Hawks are two such guys, and their respective teams may eventually move on from them if their breed of player is considered old-fashioned in this league.

There is zero indication this will happen to those younger guys, but Rondo is the standard bearer for playing that way, and he needs to recapture that old spark.

He was supposed to thrive with shooters around him in Dallas (the Mavs had the most efficient offense in the league before he joined them before falling off in that category) but was then painted as a ball hog who needed the ball too much to be effective. In Sacramento it will be different, but many still think it’s destined to fail.

This is Cousins’ team, but Rondo will see much more of the ball and be expected to create. In Dallas the system was placed above players, and that was how clean shots were manufactured.

I want Rajon Rondo to be a success with the Kings, and I also want him to wake up and realize he needs to change his attitude and outlook if he wants to accomplish those goals. His past in this league is filled with too many highlights and wow plays for it to be buried by the negativity of the last two and a half years. He’s still only 29 and has plenty more to give.

For both player and team, it would be ideal if that started happening right now.

Next: Are The 2014-15 Golden State Warriors An All-Time Great Team?

More from Hoops Habit

• The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
• 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
• Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
• Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
• Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout