Finally, something Rajon Rondo and the rest of us can agree on.
The Boston Celtics made no moves at all in the countdown to Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, but that didn’t keep them out of rampant reports that Rondo and others could be moved. As Friday dawned, Brandon Bass, Jeff Green and Gerald Wallace were all still members of the Celtics, and president of basketball operations Danny Ainge retained all of the team’s future draft picks.
For so much inactivity, there sure was a lot of talk.
“It gets annoying at times,” Rondo told reporters Friday morning at the Celtics’ shootaround before taking on the Los Angeles Lakers. “It’s been like that the last eight years, though. It’s what I do for a living. It’s not who I am. I play basketball for a living, for the time being. I’ll be 28 [on Saturday]. I have a long life to live. I have a lot of things going on outside of basketball for me right now, and it’s part of what happens when you’re an NBA player.”
Ainge denied the Celtics ever shopped Rondo, either well before or leading up to the deadline. Plenty of teams called the Celtics, but none offered a package Ainge was willing to jump on, he told the Boston Herald.
Rondo has one more season at $12.9 million after this one, sparking speculation that he could be on the move this summer or sometime next season. The passing of Thursday’s deadline doesn’t mean the trade talk is over. The irritation is only going to get worse.
