Realistic Expectations for Rajon Rondo's 2015-16 Season with Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings had to open up cap space to bring Rajon Rondo into town. It's too bad they didn't prioritize opening up space inside their offense, too.
When the Kings signed the former Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics point guard to a one-year, $9.5 million deal, they imported a floor general whose best days are behind him. On top of that, the hazy spirit of the Kings' locker room becomes even odder.
Rondo's Twitter looks like its run by some PR guy, but there is one almost-certain, treading-on-guarantee moment in the near future: He will fire off a tweet of his own, and it will contain an emoji with an embarrassing amount of subtext behind it.
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Probably more important is Rondo's actual personality as opposed to his virtual one. It's a charisma that's found itself pushing its head into others' time and time again throughout his career.
Even when people thought of Rondo as one of the NBA's best point guards, he was causing trouble in Boston. ESPN's Baxter Holmes did a tremendous job of chronicling some of his more contentious moments with the Celtics in this wonderfully written feature from April.
What happens with George Karl—who has clashed with player after player during his career, most recently with the snake-infested DeMarcus Cousins, who Karl reportedly wants traded? A clash of the minds in that locker room is as inevitable as a championship for Vivek Ranadive's squad of tenacious, 4-on-5, eight-year-old girls.
In that sense, it's odd the Kings would prioritize Rondo. Why bring in just another man who could cause a ruckus in the locker room, as he did before coach Rick Carlisle became so frustrated with him after only half a season that he benched him in Game 2 of the Mavs' first-round series against the Houston Rockets and essentially sent him home for the final three contests?
Half a season, 46 games, and that was the frustration which amounted. Not even the whole year.
In another sense, signing Rondo is perfectly in line with what the Kings would do. Sacramento has become the NBA's go-to organization if you're looking for some good, old-fashioned basketball dysfunction.
It's gone through more front-office switchups than Cher went though wardrobe changes at her last concert. It flips through coaches like Ranadive has been possessed by the ghost of George Steinbrenner. It's hiring guys (Vlade Divac) without telling others (Pete D'Alessandro) that they've been demoted.
From the outside, it's entertaining—in the same way that Real Housewives is entertaining.
That sort of environment can foster logic which promotes trades like the regrettable, cap-clearing one the Kings made with the Philadelphia 76ers this past week. It sent off Nik Stauskas, a protected first-rounder and two possible future pick swaps just to get rid of the salaries of Carl Landry and Jason Thompson. And when the Kings missed out on their initial targets (Monta Ellis, Wesley Matthews), Rondo was the only one left.
Maybe that's why the Rondo contract seemed irrationally expensive even though he didn't have many suitors.
How in demand could his services have been considering the tragedy which was this past season? $9.5 million for a ball-dominant point guard who can't shoot in today's space-prioritizing game opens an eye. But maybe the Kings had to bid that price to get Rondo to come out west.
Sacramento reportedly offered Ellis a four-year, $48 million contract. He turned it down and signed with the Indiana Pacers for less money (h/t ESPN's Chris Broussard).
Same goes for Matthews, who reportedly received a four-year, $64 million offer to come play for Karl (h/t ESPN's Marc Stein), but took $7 million fewer to avoid the stench of everything going on inside the NBA's most hectic organization—and presumably the high income taxes of California (h/t Turner's David Aldridge).
Isn't it totally possible Rondo felt the same way? And isn't it also plausible the Kings said, "We're not messing around anymore. Just make the biggest offer to Rondo, and make sure he comes here no matter what?"
But Rondo doesn't actually help much from a basketball sense, even if he is a big name.
Let's operate under the assumption that Cousins is on the Kings' opening-day roster if only because he's still rotting in Sacto, and he's far too dominant a force to give away for anything less than full value. If that's the case, the Kings should still be trying to form a roster around him.
He might be the most dominant scoring threat in the low post since Shaquille O'Neal. So, what does he need? Space. Except the Kings aren't giving that to him.
Ben McLemore, who could start at the 2 next year, is capable from three-point range, and the signing of Marco Belinelli will help, but going around the lineup isn't as encouraging.
Rudy Gay has been a below-average long-range shooter over the past four years. Whatever is going on at the 4 is uncertain, considering Sacramento drafted center Willie Cauley-Stein with the sixth overall pick and signed center Kosta Koufos to a four-year deal (h/t Stein). Does that mean Cousins is bound to play power forward with Koufos and Cauley-Stein manning the center position?
Man, there's more space inside a pickle jar.
At the top, there's Rondo, who some defenses don't even worry about, considering his lack of a jump shot and reluctance to unleash around the rim for fear of getting fouled. Deteriorating free-throw percentages can add hesitance to a player's game (see: Andris Biedrins for the most extreme example of this). That's certainly true for Rondo, who shot the exact same percentage from the line as the face of the NBA's most inept free-throw shooter, DeAndre Jordan, this past season: 39.7 percent.
Before his ACL injury, 48 percent of Rondo's career field-goal attempts came at the rim. Last year, a career-low 31 percent came from that area. Of course, part of that is due to post-knee-injury lack of explosion, but there's also been a stylistic change in Rondo's game, which is part of why his free-throw rate has plummeted along with those numbers.
Rondo can still find success if he adjusts some of his tendencies, which truly is a possibility. No one will ever accuse him of being anything other than one of the smartest players—not just on the court, but in any other usual facet of life—in the league.
If he learns to play off the ball a little better inside Karl's offense, if he feels comfortable lobbing the rock into Cousins and letting the big fella do his thing, if he can feel spry enough to play capable defense once again (because a point guard combination of 2014-style Rondo and Darren Collison isn't stopping much), then the signing could look good.
Even if he doesn't, a one-year contract doesn't scream disaster like a multi-season commitment would. But it's still not optimal, even if the Kings forced their own hand by making a cap-clearing trade before actually getting anything close to commitments from their top targets.
The Kings are chaotic and eroding, but so is Rondo. It's a perfect fit. Or a terrible one. I can't tell.
One thing is for certain: We won't be able to turn off the Real Housewives of Sacramento.
Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.
All statistics are current as of July 5 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless noted otherwise.
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