Moving on without Rondo

The Boston Celtics earned a bittersweet victory Sunday afternoon on their familiar parquet floor.  Emotions ran high with a hard fought double overtime win over the defending champion Miami Heat - a game which also served as Ray Allen's return to Boston for the first time since spurning his former teammates to take his talents to South Beach.  Those emotions quickly flipped after the game when the team found out they'd been struck with a worst case scenario.

Rajon Rondo suffered a torn ACL in their previous game in Atlanta two nights before and would be lost for the rest of the season.

The star point guard leads the league in assists by a wide margin (11.1 per game), ranks in the top ten in the league in steals (1.8) and was recently voted as a starter in next month's All-Star game.  That kind of production is impossible to replace.  The franchise has been going through a gradual change toward pushing Rondo as the focal point of the team, so this devastating injury has to be seen as a major step back from those plans.

The Celtics now find themselves at a difficult crossroads.  Do they carry on without Rondo, with their veteran core carrying the load, or do they throw in the towel and blow up the roster?  Neither option is all that appealing.

Even after the big win against Miami gave them a much needed confidence boost, the 21-23 Celtics are struggling to hold on to the 8th playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.  Any chance at a deep playoff run was going to be a steep hill to climb as it was, but without Rondo, that hill is looking more like Mt. Everest.  His absence piles more of the burden on Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett, two weary veterans that already are battling bouts of inconsistency and sluggishness.  It's unfair to ask much more from them.

There's no place worse to be in the NBA than stuck in No Man's land.  The 8th seed means a likely first round exit against Miami, but barely missing the playoff means only a middling draft pick.  In this league you're always either moving forward to improve or bottoming out in hopes of drafting a blue chip prospect with a high lottery pick.  So if Boston's championship aspirations evaporated with the loss of Rondo, that means blowing things up is the simple solution, right?

Not so fast.  First of all, plenty of the league's bottom feeders have a head start in the race for the best lottery spots.  While trading away some veterans with an eye towards the future would result in enough losses to take them out of the playoff race, barring some lottery luck (which historically has been unkind to these Celtics) it likely only puts them in position for a top 10 pick, not top 5.  The odds of finding a future star in that range aren't impossible, but they are greatly diminished.  Sinking further in the standings could lead to them drafting a useful player, but they can't count on it netting them a franchise savior.

Second of all, who exactly are you going to trade?  Kevin Garnett is their best remaining trade chip, but after he put off retirement to make one more run in Boston, it seems heartless to shop him in the first year of his new deal.  Yes, this is a business and trading KG while he still has value might be what's best for the long term.  However, it's not good business to ship out a franchise player that just took a discount to come back if it means future free agents will be hesitant of signing with your team for fear of the same type of treatment.  Plus, Garnett has a no trade clause anyway.  There's no chance of him going anywhere unless he asks to be traded, but KG is fiercely loyal to his team and coach, so that's not happening.

Paul Pierce is sure to find his name in the rumor mill now more than ever.  He was nearly traded to New Jersey last year before GM Danny Ainge had a change of heart, so it would be no shock to see him consider it again.  His recent shooting slump aside, Pierce is still having a good season and could be a valuable asset to a contending team looking to add a veteran scorer.  On paper it makes plenty of sense to try to trade him now, yet it would be heartbreaking to let him go.  Pierce has long been the face of the franchise and deserves the chance to retire a Celtic, if that's what he wants.  Unless he gives his blessing on a trade, it's hard to imagine it happening.

Then again... there is a way trading Pierce could still work out for everyone.  He's in the last year of his contract, with a player option for next season.  The option is for $15.3 million, but only $4 million of it is guaranteed.  If the Rondo injury sends the team into a tail spin between now and next month's trade deadline, perhaps the Celtics could trade Pierce to a contender for salary relief and a young player and/or draft pick with the understanding that he would decline his player option after this season and return to Boston on a new deal next year so he can finish his career here.  A two year, $12 million deal starting next year would save the team a lot in cap savings while getting Pierce close to the total he would have gotten on his option year for next season.  Since next year's option isn't fully guaranteed anyway, this deal could earn him more than what he'd get on the open market (consider that Ray Allen just signed with Miami for $3 million a year, so Pierce shouldn't expect too much more than that at this stage of his career).  Technically this type of wink wink deal isn't legal, as Boston would be unable to negotiate that next contract until after the season.  If they traded him they would have no guarantee that he would opt out of his player option or re-sign with Boston next off-season.  So while it may be a good idea, it also should be considered a long shot.

There's little else on this roster that will bring back much of value.  Trading young players like Avery Bradley or Jared Sullinger defeats the purpose of rebuilding, since those are exactly the type of players you want to be able to build around.  It's highly unlikely that they'll find any takers for the underachieving group of Jeff Green, Jason Terry, Brandon Bass or Courtney Lee.  They all have long term contracts and haven't performed well enough to entice teams to give up anything of value for them.

So blowing it up may end up being a more difficult strategy than it seemed.  If treading water and settling for being in the middle isn't an option either, where does that leave them? 

They can try to find a temporary replacement for Rondo.  Nobody can replace Rondo's unique skills, but there are point guards likely to be on the trade market that could be useful additions to help right this sinking ship.  Toronto's Jose Calderon, Minnesota's Luke Ridnour or Charlotte's Ramon Sessions would all be acceptable stop gaps.  Calderon's expiring contract makes him the ideal candidate, but his $10.5 million salary makes him the hardest to match up with in a trade.  Ridnour and Sessions are both under contract for next season, but could be retained to give the Celtics the reliable backup ball handler they've lacked in recent years and provide insurance in case Rondo isn't ready to return at the start of next season.  Now the only issue is convincing one of those teams to take back one or more of Boston's merry band of underachievers.  Since they used their full mid-level exception to sign Terry last summer, they are prevented from adding payroll that would take their roster beyond $74 million, leaving them with only about $2 million in wiggle room.  Ideally, they'd prefer to cut payroll to try to get below the $70.3 million luxury tax line.

Boston has proved at times, such as Sunday against Miami or earlier this month against the Knicks, that they are capable of winning without Rondo. This team has a maddening habit of playing up to their toughest competition while also playing down to inferior opponents.  This explains how they managed to beat two of the top teams in the East, while falling to Detroit and Cleveland in between.  Rondo has been one of the worst offenders of this, as he is infamous for saving his best games for national television and sleep walking through lackluster performances in other games.  Perhaps a change at the point guard position is just the spark they need to turn around that disturbing trend.  Then again, subtracting an All-Star point guard is rarely a recipe for improvement.

Even if they added a temporary solution at point guard, it's hard to imagine that making the team better than it was with Rondo. Considering they were struggling as a below average team with a healthy Rondo running the show, their championship window just closed.


This isn't the first time this Celtics team has been counted out, only to watch them rise like a phoenix from the ashes to surpass our wildest expectations.  They were deemed too old back in 2010, yet managed to fight all the way to Game 7 of the Finals, where they were minutes away from sealing their second title in three years.  Boston found itself two games under .500 at the mid-point last season, only to rally back in the second half and end up in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, where they nearly upset the eventual champs in Miami.  This team has a habit of surprising us.  Then again, those teams had Rondo.

"You can write the obituary. I'm not, you can go ahead," snapped coach Doc Rivers in the wake of the news of Rondo's injury. 

Doc may not be ready to give up on this season, but Rondo's season ending injury essentially wrote the obituary on a season that was already spiraling down the drain.  Losing their floor general removes nearly all hope of this team bouncing back with another of their trademark surprise runs, but isn't likely enough to cause them to sink to the top of the lottery. 

The Celtics are at a crossroads, with both paths taking them to a place they don't want to be - stuck in No Man's land.