Let the Rondo Trade Rumours Begin: Celtics Star PG Returns Friday
Rajon Rondo will be back playing in the NBA this Friday when his Boston Celtics face the Los Angeles Lakers as confirmed by Celtics team’s president of basketball operations Danny Ainge. Rondo is coming off the first major injury in his career tearing the ACL in his right knee in the 2012-2013 NBA season.
The announcement validated Rondo’s most recent tweet last Jan. 13:
29,233,380 secs
— Rajon Rondo (@RajonRondo) Jan. 14, 2014
Apparently, the post referred to the time between his knee surgery and the tip-off vs. the Lakers on Friday night.
As expected, Rondo will be brought in slowly into the Celtics’ rotation this season. He joined the Celtics’ D-League affiliate team during in some workouts earlier in the week.
“He’ll probably be playing five minutes a quarter, approximately,” said Ainge to ESPN.COM. “Knowing Rondo, he’ll probably complain about that.”
The Lakers game marks the first time for Rondo will play under Boston’s rookie coach in Brad Stevens, who has led the team to a 14-26 win-loss card in this rebuilding season.
“The plan of attack will be he will play 18 to 20 minutes, and that would be a max," said Stevens. "So then you decide how you want to disperse those and how you want to attack each portion of the game and all those things. So that's what we're going to talk about. Obviously, he is our starting point guard, so I want to make sure we figure out the right minutes for him so he doesn't get too stiff on the bench and all that other stuff."
Rondo played just 38 games last season logging in 13.7 points, 5.6 rebounds and 11.1 assists per game.
How will the four-time NBA All-Star play in his first game back off a major injury? How well will he be effective this season? And most importantly, how will we react when he sees the rebuilding team on tank mode this year?