ESPN’s Baxter Holmes has a fantastic feature on Rajon Rondo, “Good at Math, Bad at People.” I recommend reading the entire article, but here are a few highly interesting excerpts along with my usual insightful commentary.
KG talks about the time Rondo threw his water bottle at a TV:
It’s May 2011, and Boston is trailing Miami two games to none during its second-round playoff series. On the best of days, Celtics coach Doc Rivers rides Rajon Rondo hard, pushing his stubborn point guard as only a former stubborn point guard can. But this day is different. Doc is more relentless, Rondo more seething. “He was just pushing and he was just pushing and he was just pushing,” Garnett recalls. Rondo glances across the room at Shaquille O’Neal and Jermaine O’Neal. “They saw me bubbling,” Rondo remembers. “They were trying to calm me down. It was too late.”
Without warning, Rondo snatches his water bottle and hurls it, full force, at the television monitor, the one airing the game footage that’s being used to critique him. The 50-inch flat-screen, mounted on a cart in the center of the room, shatters. “When he blew the TV up, it was about to go in another direction — like, the whole thing,” Garnett says, his voice rising. Rivers, fed up, gives Garnett an order: “I want Rondo out.” Garnett obliges. “He kicked the door off the hinges,” Garnett says. “I’ll never forget: I had to pick him up and carry him out because it was going like that, and the locker room was suuuper tense. Just super tense.” As he’s hauling the 6-foot-1, 186-pound point guard, the 6-11 Garnett barks, “Get outside, man, shit,” physically carrying Rondo outside the room, then the building. Rondo fumes. “He was just so fucking hot,” Garnett says, reliving the moment. “He was hot, yo. When I say he was hot, he was hot.”
Let’s flashback to this 2011 series. Do you remember what happened in Game 3? Rondo had his elbow dislocated by Dirty D-Wade. He popped it back in and kept on playing, fairly well, too. But apparently Doc Rivers didn’t give a crap because he still rode Rondo’s ass in that meeting. I’m not excusing Rondo’s behavior, but geez Doc, if you were ever going to cut him some slack, this was the time. Oh, and nothing beats KG telling a story. Nothing.
On Rondo and credibility:
Provide him with bad information? “Your credibility is shot,” Rondo says. And if he doesn’t buy the narrative, even off the floor, he’ll bail, he’ll disengage, as he does on movies whose storylines stray from logic, even for a moment. His last theater walkout: The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington. “I didn’t understand how he got the cop’s number,” Rondo says, referencing a certain scene. “It was just too much.” He recently watched the movie again to see if he could stomach it. He couldn’t.
I find this to be odd behavior. How can you watch any movie without a strong suspension of disbelief? I saw the Equalizer (yet don’t remember this particular scene, explanation below) and thought it was average. For the record, I’ve never walked out of a theater. I’ll nap before I piss away my money.
On Rondo’s study habits and memory:
Before Rondo’s first playoff series against Atlanta in 2008, the Celtics distributed a 100-page book full of the Hawks’ plays and statistics. Rondo took it home, then challenged assistant Darren Erman the next morning: “Quiz me on anything.” Rondo nailed every question, until Erman tossed a curveball — a question about something that wasn’t in the book. “Fuck you,” Rondo said. “That’s not in there.” Once, when Erman was with the Warriors, his team ran a side out-of-bounds play, called C, that he says they’d run maybe 15 times all season. They called the play. Rondo immediately shouted, “C! Rip screen, rip screen!” Erman and then-Warriors assistant Brian Scalabrine looked at each other, stunned: How in the hell did he know that?
Unbelievable. I envy anyone with a strong memory because I can’t remember squat.
Again, I highly recommend the article. It doesn’t change my opinion of Rajon. I still think he’s an immensely talented and flawed basketball player and human being.
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