Lakers News: 2020 Los Angeles Champ Retiring From NBA
Former 2020 Los Angeles Lakers championship-winning reserve point guard Rajon Rondo is hanging up his sneakers.
The four-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA honoree told the All The Smoke podcast's Stephen Jackson and ex-Laker Matt Barnes that he was officially done for good.
“Absolutely,” Rondo acknowledged. This announcement from the 38-year-old, who's had some legal trouble of late, reads a bit like a "You can't fire me, I quit" type of news item. Rondo hasn't played since the 2021-22 season, which he split between LA and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the hopes of achieving a final postseason run with a contender. He played in just 39 contests on those two teams.
Rondo started off his NBA career as a Lakers enemy, before eventually morphing into an ally. Selected with the No. 21 pick out of Kentucky in 2006 by the Boston Celtics, Rondo in his second season became a champion as the starting point guard for a Hall of Famer-loaded 2007-08 club, led by power forward Kevin Garnett, small forward Paul Pierce and shooting guard Ray Allen. That team bested the Kobe Bryant-Pau Gasol Lakers in a six-game 2008 NBA Finals series. LA would have its revenge in 2010, when it outlasted Boston during a seven-game slugfest.
By that point, Rondo had become Boston's fourth All-Star, alongside its immortals. In his prime, he was one of the best floor generals in the league, an exquisite passer and point-of-attack defender whose lack of quickness against All-Star contemporaries like Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook and John Wall was mitigated by his brilliant court vision.
He suffered a career-altering ACL tear halfway through the 2012-13 season. It would effectively end his All-Star prime. He was flipped to the Dallas Mavericks in 2014-15, and would become more of an inconsistent role player with the Mavs (his tenure there was tempestuous and short-lived), the Sacramento Kings, the Chicago Bulls, and the New Orleans Pelicans ahead of his Lakers run, which kicked off in 2018. By that point, Rondo's alter ego "Playoff Rondo" had become a running theme. He would conserve his energy during regular seasons, but would suddenly look like his peak All-NBA self in exciting postseason runs with Chicago and New Orleans.
"Playoff Rondo" emerged as a hero in Los Angeles during the team's run to capturing the 2020 championship. He quickly became the team's third-best player, behind immortals LeBron James and Anthony Davis. After averaging 7.1 points on .418/.328/.659 shooting splits, five assists, three rebounds and 0.8 steals in his 20.5 minutes off the bench with the Lakers during their 52-19 regular season (they were the West's No. 1 seed in a coronavirus-shortened season), he he averaged 8.9 points on .455/.400/.684 shooting splits, 6.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 24.7 minutes a night, while submitted All-Defensive effort (in spurts) on the other end.
He then capitalized on his postseason success, inking a lucrative deal to be a playoff whisperer to young Atlanta Hawks All-Star Trae Young. That lasted all of 27 games, before he was flipped to the Los Angeles Clippers. He rejoined the Lakers on a minimum deal in 2021, and his season ground to a halt with the Cavs.
For his career, he boasts regular season averages of 9.8 points on a .456/.324/.611 slash line, 7.9 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.6 steals in 957 games (733 starts).
Rondo earned rave reviews from the 2020 NBA Finals MVP as the teammate LeBron James has played next to who boasts the most stellar basketball IQ. Given that James has played with many fellow geniuses of the game, that's high praise indeed. James explained his thinking to cohost JJ Redick in a recent episode of their stellar new hoops nerd podcast Mind The Game.
“Rajon Rondo. He could do things on the go," James said. "It’s very weird to me that he’s not coaching at a high level - I think it’s because he doesn’t want to do it."
Time will tell if that remains the case for much longer.
