Who knew Rajon Rondo was such a multisport athlete?
The Celtics point guard has always been a big believer in his game, carrying confidence onto the court even when others weren’t giving him credit. So if Rondo says he’s pretty good at sports other than basketball, maybe people need to give him some rope.
Rondo was part of an NBA live chat with fans recently, and he was asked questions on a wide range of topics. He talked about new coach Brad Stevens and being a leader on a Celtics team that has a lot of new faces, but it was some of his non-basketball comments that ended up being the most revealing.
Rondo expressed interest in playing Connect Four (a known favorite of his), cornhole (OK…) and professional football. Well, he was going to play football, but he decided not to mess with that and just keep playing basketball instead.
“I’ve always wanted to switch another sport professionally,” he said. “I’m not going to do it. It would probably have to be football. I played football. I’m OK. I’m not going to say that what those guys do is easy and it’s an easy transition. I thought about it a couple years ago, but now that’s past my time.”
The other sports still provide plenty of opportunity, though.
“I saw a cornhole tournament on ESPN the other day, about a month ago, and I think I’ll probably try to enter next year and win that,” he said. “I’m pretty good at that as well.”
It’s Rondo’s Connect Four ability, though, that is on par with his All-Star basketball skills. Rondo is known to take challenges from youngsters regularly, and, like any champ, he doesn’t let them win.
When asked which game comes most naturally to him, Rondo ranked basketball behind Connect Four — but ahead of rollerblading.
“Probably Connect Four — the most naturally, or I could say basketball,” he said. “I’ve been playing basketball for a long time, but I just love sports in general. I’ve always had a knack for competing, whether it was football, baseball, track. Anything I did, I’ve always wanted to be the best at it, so that’s a trickle down as far as Connect Four or even skating. I always put a lot of time and practice in when I first started to [roller] skate, because I wanted to be the best.”
Rondo has been known to mix sports, too. When Kevin Garnett was still playing with the Celtics, he and Rondo had a fun little tipoff routine they would do to keep themselves amused at the start of games. It varied from time to time, including Garnett hiking the ball like a football or Rondo firing off a big bounce. That went well until Rondo ran into another player just as competitive as he.
“It’s a funny story,” Rondo said of the incident. “I think it was in the Finals, and I used to do it against the Lakers, and I was about to bounce the ball extremely high, but Kobe [Bryant] made a jump at me, because I guess he had seen my tipoff routine, and he was able to try to get the steal. But I caught him before he caught me.”
Maybe Kobe would like a rematch over some Connect Four.
