The two biggest moves of the summer, replacing Doc Rivers with Brad Stevens and trading away Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett for a package that included Kris Humphries, have been a boon to the flapping gums that pretend to know about the Celtics. They are all especially fond of projecting their opinions of Rondo onto this team and proclaiming triumphantly that Rondo will never mesh with either Stevens nor Humphries (because of this).
Well, in an interview with Toucher and Rich at media day, a very relaxed and casual Rondo clearly dispels both notions without hesitation or “choosing words carefully.”
On Stevens:
“Very impressed… he’s very humble…. he’s on the court with you every day. He’s breaking things down and it makes sense. And if it doesn’t, he’s always asking questions, and that’s what you can ask of a new coach coming into a situation like this.”
And on Humph:
“We were going to start a feud on Twitter just to mess around with the fans. But Kris is a great guy, I’ve got nothing bad to say about him. That was just a heat of the moment battle. If somebody did the same thing to Kris during a game, I’d do the same thing for him. That’s just how I look at the guys in my locker room.”
Of course, there is always the caveat with these media day interviews that everyone loves each other before the practices actually start. But Rondo’s attitude about Stevens has been consistent. There hasn’t been a single inkling from anyone in the know that contradicts what we know his opinion of Stevens to be.
And as for Humphries… he’s a teammate now, and Rondo protects his teammates. Some of these professional blowhards only sit behind the mic because they’ve never been good enough to actually play sports, so they don’t get what it’s like to be in a locker room. They don’t understand how things happen in the heat of the moment, and how teammates feel about each other.
Don’t be shocked if Rondo and KG go toe-to-toe in one of these Celtics-Nets games. Hell, I expect it. And they’re great friends.
Check out the whole Rondo interview with Toucher and Rich. It’s worth the 12 minutes.
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