This year's iteration is Rondo for New Orleans' Chris Paul, a free agent next summer who is looking to join his own super-team to compete with the Unholy Trinity in Miami. And although those talks seem more or less dead as of this writing (Paul reportedly won't agree to sign an extension with the Celtics), enough has been made of it over the past 24 hours that it's worth a discussion.
Given my overall opinion of the guy, what I'm about to say borders on heresy, but here goes: Rondo for Paul is a no-brainer, slam dunk for the Cs. This isn't a novel statement -- you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who disagrees. As much as I love Rondo and think Paul is kind of a punk, there's no question that CP3 opens up more possibilities for a franchise, both this year and moving forward, than #9 does.
Danny Ainge knows this. That's why he proposed the deal. And whoever the hell is running things for the Hornets (the franchise is owned by the NBA) knows it, too. That's why he declined it.
I heard these trade rumors last night and thought little of them, but awoke this morning to a couple of semi-hysterical emails and texts messages. I started searching the deep recesses of my brain to try to retrieve who the past Rondo trade rumors had swirled around. Finding nothing there, I turned to the Internet, and quickly came across this article by Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. It's not Deveney's main thesis, but the below quote from that article illustrates the point I want to make rather nicely:
After having spent the Celtics’ ’08 title march in the background, you might say Rondo’s star was born in those playoffs. And yet, a month later, Rondo was one of the most prominent names on the trading block. He was going to Detroit with Ray Allen in a package for the Pistons’ three best players—Tayshaun Prince, Richard Hamilton and Rodney Stuckey. Or he was going to Memphis with Brian Scalabrine for Rudy Gay, Mike Conley and the No. 2 pick in the draft. No, he was off to Phoenix with Allen for Amare Stoudemire, Leandro Barbosa and the No. 14 pick.
None of that came to pass. In fact, none of it even came close to happening. Each scenario, at the time, was considered ridiculously in favor of the Celtics (though that Pistons deal would have been a good one for Detroit) and served as little more than grist for the rumor mill.
I don't necessarily agree with Deveny's main argument, that Ainge throws Rondo's name out in trade rumors as a motivational tactic. (It's certainly a possibility, but I think it's more likely that Ainge simply thinks that it's possible that one day, an opposing NBA GM will make a dumb decision and overpay for Rondo. It certainly wouldn't be the first time an NBA GM made such a decision.) But Deveney is right when he says that the vast majority of rumored trades involving Rondo would have been seen as major coups for the Celtics.
(I would have to agree with that assessment, with the possible exception of a proposal that Ainge is rumored to have proposed after the playoffs last year, a proposal that just became public knowledge yesterday: Rondo and Jeff Green to Oklahoma City for Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Perkins. I wonder how that conversation went: "Hi Sam, it's Danny. Remember when we had the best team in the East and then traded you our center and defensive anchor for your overrated combo forward? Yeah, I can't believe Shaq and Jermaine got injured, either! Anyway, Sam, we screwed up, and we'd like our center back. Can we swap again? No? What if we gave you Rondo, too, and you gave us that athletic kid who can't shoot, either -- Westbrook, I think his name is. No? But Sam ... Wait, hello? Sam????" In seriousness, I probably reacted as poorly as I did to hearing that proposal because it would have been a sneaky admission by Ainge that he messed up by dealing Perkins for Green in the first place, instead of an outright one, and because it would make me sad to have the band back together, sans Rondo, knowing that we easily could have kept all five together and not thrown away a chance at last season's title. I'm also not that high on Westbrook, though a lot of people are and would rather have him than Rondo.)
The point is that at least while our team is built to win now, any Rondo trade is very likely to overwhelmingly benefit us. It'd be something to be nostalgic over -- I'd probably even shed a few tears -- but our favorite franchise would almost certainly be in better shape because of it.
That caveat -- at least while our team is built to win now -- is important, though. Because, as fun as these last four seasons have been, we have to remember what we've gotten ourselves into. When we traded the 5th pick in the 2007 draft to Seattle for Ray Allen and Al Jefferson and a couple of future firsts to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett, we did so with an eye to a three-, maybe four-year championship window. Rondo's excellence and the surprising relative longevity of Paul Pierce and Allen have extended that window somewhat, but we're in year five now. It's going to end soon, my brothers and sisters in green, and when it does, it's going to end ugly.
Not necessarily ugly on the court or for the health of the franchise, in a basketball sense. When their run as alpha dogs is over, the veterans could bring in draft picks or promising players from franchises looking for something extra to put them over the top. Or Boston could use their cap room to sign a free agent stud. Rondo could be turned into a couple of pieces around which a playoff -- if not a championship -- squad could be built. The Celtics could be postseason mainstays again.
But emotionally, it's probably going to get ugly. The contract extension that Pierce signed in the summer of 2010 makes it likely that the Captain and the Truth retires a lifelong Celtic, and that's one drama-bomb I'll be happy to avoid. But Ray and KG are up after this year, and in all likelihood, they'll want to stay. And Pierce will want them to stay, and so will Rondo, and so will Doc Rivers, and so will I. So will you, and so will all the other Celtics fans in the world. And at some point -- maybe not this offseason, but sometime soon, and possibly even before this offseason -- Ainge is going to have to step in and be the bad guy, tell everyone it's over, and remind everyone of the Window and that it was fun while it lasted.
And then there's Rondo.
Rondo is the most unique player in the league today, if not in history. His peculiar blend of talent, athleticism, and disposition make him a once-in-a-lifetime performer on the basketball court. No player has brought me greater joy than he; it is likely that none ever will.
But Rondo is not, in all probability, a franchise point guard. He has more value to us than any NBA team, but the factors that make that true -- his chemistry with the Big Three and his ability and willingness to manage the three of them on the court -- dissipate when those guys are gone. I'm not interested in debating the degree to which he makes his teammates better and vice versa, but it's virtually uncontroverted that his effectiveness will be reduced when he suits up alongside lesser players and the opponent can focus their energies on stopping him. It is very likely that one winter night in the near future, Rondo will pull a jersey over that tiny head and onto those broad shoulders, and it won't say "Celtics" on the front. It will say "Hornets" or "Pacers" or, God forbid -- no, I don't want to even mention the unpleasant possibilities.
And to me, that's really what this play for CP3 is all about: the future. To sell Paul on signing long-term with Boston, Ainge has to sell him on the possibility of winning right away, going for a ring alongside Pierce, Garnett, and Allen. But from the very day that Ainge brought this team together, he's had at least one eye on the future. He structured the Big Three's contracts so that they would expire in staggered fashion; year-by-year, not all at once. The goal was to contend for championships during the Window, then slowly trade older pieces for younger ones, building the foundation so that the next title team can start from a much more solid base than this one did. Paul would be the bridge from the Big Three era to whatever era is next in Boston.
I say all this not to temper excitement for the season that is unexpectedly just a few weeks away, nor to cause you to monitor the upcoming campaign pensively, waiting for the hammer to drop. Rather, I say it to encourage you to appreciate what is immediately in front of us. As recently as last week, I was convinced that the labor dispute would claim the entire 2011-2012 season. I was faced not only with the loss of a prime season of my favorite player, but the likely closing of the Window and the end of the Big Three era.
And so, while the lockout made me as angry as it made any of you, it also made me appreciate the past and the newly-saved future that much more. On Christmas Day, when we rip the bow off the NBA season, I'll watch with a renewed sense of appreciation. I hope that when I flip on the TV at my grandmother's house, I'll see a familiar face playing point guard for the Celtics, zipping around the court, shooting passing lanes and dazzling the crowd with often spectacular assists.
But if he isn't, I'll know why. And I'll be okay with it.
I think.
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