…Rajon Rondo is
not a cancer in the clubhouse. In what has to be the most
up-and-down season any professional athlete has ever had in Chicago sports,
Rondo has come back from the dead (at least three times by my count) to claim
the role of starting point guard. On
Tuesday night, Rondo was a rebound short of a triple double as the number-eight
seed Bulls beat the top-seed Celtics 111-97, to go up two games to none in
their opening-round playoff series.
Rondo is both
proud and difficult; you wouldn’t want to suggest to him that he’s slowed a
step at the age of 31, unless you had a sudden urge to visit the dentist. All I really knew about Rondo when the Bulls
signed him in the offseason was that he had a reputation for mouthing whenever
the mood hit; little did I or Bulls’ management realize their new player would
do so on opponents and teammates—see Dwayne Wade and Jimmy Butler—alike. Here’s the thing about Rondo, though. He does the walk after the talk.
Whether benched,
relegated to the second string or returned to the starting lineup, Rondo has
been a revelation with the younger players, leading both by example and instruction. In many ways, Rondo reminds me of ex-White
Sox A.J. Pierzynski, a smart pain-in-the-butt sort of guy an opposing team
never wants to go up against. Only A.J.
was never that popular with his teammates.
Rondo is, Wade and Butler excepted.
Maybe.
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