Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports sat down with Rondo for an excellent piece that essentially picks up where the “maturity” conversation left off in the Morning Dump.
The highlights:
“I’ve kind of taken that leadership and veteran role because I am a point guard and I have been in Doc’s system,” Rondo said. “Other than [Pierce], I have been here the longest. I know exactly what Doc wants, especially for me and this team. I’m trying to lead the team the best that I can.”
Leadership roles can be interesting. Some players might let it get to their heads and become insufferable pricks that alienate their teammates. Other embrace it and shed some of those dickish tendencies because they feel the responsibilities that come along with that role.
Rondo seems to be leaning a little to the latter. Read the Spears piece and you’ll see how he talks about getting this team off to a good start since there are so many new guys.
“People act like because me and Ray didn’t get along or they think me and Ray didn’t get along that I’m a bad person or he’s a bad person,” Rondo said. “No. It’s just life. If you look at your job, everyone doesn’t always get along with every co-worker they work with. It’s just part of life. People are blowing the Ray thing out of proportion. We had some words, but other than that it was no big deal.
“There were so many rumors like I was looking Ray off. Why would I look Ray off? That doesn’t make sense. He’s the best shooter, so why would I look him off? People can see it how they want to. They can talk to Ray. But from my standpoint, he made his decision. I don’t know why he made the decision, but he made the decision. I don’t think it had anything to do with me.”
At least he mentioned him by name… and didn’t refer to him as “that guy”.
Now that you hear Ray also had a problem with Garnett, you start to wonder how overblown the Rondo stuff really is.
Hey, sometimes relationships run their course and you move on. This is one of those times.
Oh, and about KG:
“My team won,” Rondo said. “We dominated. I had seven touchdowns and zero interceptions. I had a nice kickoff return back. We had fun. K.G. was the quarterback of the other team, but they had to sub him out because he wasn’t getting any touchdowns.”
I can almost see KG retiring from basketball and working his way into the NFL as a QB just because he’s crazy enough to let a comment like that drive him to it.
So it seems Rondo really is embracing things. Here’s the Yahoo link again. It’s worth the read. We’ll have to wait and see what the final product of all this leadership is… but it’s hard not to be encouraged by how Rondo is acting right now.
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