Boston Celtics facing the Rajon Rondo quagmire: NBA Special Report
The big boys of the East, Boston Celtics are in a very complicated situation right now. The team full of aging future Hall of Famers is on the verge of entering mediocrity and their best shot at avoiding that fate is probably to
say goodbye to their best hope of the future, Rajon Rondo.
Rondo has developed into a fantastic point guard since joining the Boston Celtics and many believe that a new Celtics team can be built around the young yet battle tested point guard. That might be true, but with Kevin Garnett,
Paul Pierce and Ray Allen coming towards the end of their glorious careers; it would take a lot of time for the Celtics to rebuild.
The question is do those players want to just end with a whimper? Is the Boston Celtics franchise prepared to wait for them to retire and then hope that some superstar free agent drops in their lap? Is Rondo prepared to see out
his prime like that?
The answer to all those questions is probably a “NO”. However the Celtics don’t have much choice, or at least not an easy one. This is a team built around the four players already mentioned, and three of them don’t represent much
trade value. The only one that does is Rajon Rondo.
So will the Celtics trade him? If anyone has the stomach for it, it’s Danny Ainge. He recently tied down head coach Doc Rivers for another 5 years at the helm and he was the man behind the blockbuster trade that brought Ray Allen
and Kevin Garnett to the Celtics in the first place.
He hasn’t shied away from a bold move and a bold move is what’s needed for the Celtics to retain their status of a NBA World Championship contending team. A bold move involving Rajon Rondo.
The Celtics can go about doing what they need to do by trading Rajon Rondo straight up for a superstar. Boston most need a dominant centre and, with Rondo moving, a point guard. Dwight Howard and Chris Paul come to mind as two
players that could instantly make the Boston Celtics a championship worthy team again.
A trade for Howard is unlikely though. The player has declared he would like to stay at the Orlando Magic for another year and in any case the Magic are stacked in the backcourt, so Rondo and Jeff Green, the other player the Celtics
will probably need to offer to sweeten any deal, won’t be that attractive to them.
Chris Paul on the other hand, has made noises about wanting to leave New Orleans. His contract is up next year anyway and the Hornets could be tempted to take Rondo now rather than see Paul leave for nothing in a year. Chris Paul
wants to go to a championship worthy team, and with him playing alongside Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce the Boston Celtics would certainly be one.
If the trade will actually take place is totally up to Danny Ainge and the Celtics. They are reportedly exploring a number of options but moving any of the Big Three would not really get them too much in return, other than maybe
freeing up some cap space. That won’t be an issue for the Celtics in a year anyway with major contracts coming to an end in 2012. It would also incur a severe backlash for the Boston faithful.
Then again so would trading Rondo. Well, if Chris Paul came in return…
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