All-NBA point guard Rajon Rondo was almost traded by the Boston Celtics before he became a star as the star revealed on “The Old Man and the Three” podcast — being nearly shipped off to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the infamous deal that landed Kevin Garnett in Beantown.
“I was asking for trade, I’m glad I didn’t obviously,” Rondo said (h/t Boston.com). “I didn’t actually go to the front office but I talked to my agent Bill Duffy and my mentor Doug Bibby. They told me, ‘The cream rises to the top.’ I was in trade talks with Minnesota that summer for KG.” Rondo had been unhappy with his role under then-head coach Doc Rivers.
“I felt like, we lost 18 straight games, I just wanted opportunity,” Rondo prefaced before saying, “Doc would tell me things and then come game time, it wouldn’t happen. I was frustrated in that process. Coming from Kentucky, I wasn’t accustomed to losing like this. I wanted to help the team so every day in practice I would bust my butt, try to figure it out and still wasn’t producing in the game or wasn’t getting a chance to produce in a game.”
Keeping Rajon Rondo was one of the best decisions Boston Celtics GM Danny Ainge ever made
Now that we know that Rondo was almost a member of the Timberwolves and the Big Three nearly didn’t have the point guard who made it all work, former Boston Celtics GM Danny Ainge needs to be given credit for yet another trade he didn’t end up pulling the trigger on.
We know that Ainge passed on Jimmy Butler, but there are a lot more hypotheticals to have not sweated instead of regretting trading the draft picks that became Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown than in the case of trading the players themselves. Rondo, the man, not the future draft pick, was nearly a trade piece for Garnett.
Who knows what the Big Three era would’ve looked like without him? Rondo’s ball movement and facilitation were key characteristics of an offense of finishers, but not initiators. Plus, it’s not as though Rivers has proven to be a genius without the C’s former No. 9.
Good thing that’s a hypothetical that deserves no thought. Banner 17 is in the TD Garden rafters and Rondo is a Boston legend for the rest of his life.