The Past Is the Past

An era of great basketball ended this week. Remember the 2008 Boston Celtics? That was the team that got me back into the NBA and following that league more closely than I ever had before. These days, the Celtics have a much different look, and they’re not a relevant player in the championship discussion the way they were for six straight years. Doc Rivers is now coaching Chris Paul and Blake Griffin in Los Angeles. Kevin Garnett is the veteran leader on a Brooklyn team trying to stay in the playoff picture. Paul Pierce is the veteran presence sent to Washington to teach young stars John Wall and Bradley Beal how to be winners, and is a key part of one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. Ray Allen is currently unsigned, but not retired, waiting for a title contender in need of his outside shot off the bench. Kendrick Perkins has been playing with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City since the Celtics traded him for Jeff Green in the spring of 2011. With the trade that sent Celtics’ captain Rajon Rondo to Dallas earlier this week, the last piece of the starting five that never lost a series, and the last player left from the 2008 championship squad (although Leon Powe has returned to the Celtics to join he front office, and Brian Scalabrine now works as a team broadcaster) has finally left Boston. That era in Celtics basketball is officially over, and it is time to move on. The 2008 Celtics certainly have.

The trade sent Rondo to the Dallas Mavericks for Jameer Nelson, Jae Crowder, and Brandan Wright, as well as a future 1st and 2nd round draft pick. This season, it makes the Mavs better, adding a very good playmaking point guard to a team that already has Dirk Nowitzki, Monta Ellis, and Tyson Chandler. For the Celtics, it completes the process of going young, and gives more power to second year head coach Brad Stevens.The longest tenured Celtics player is now Avery Bradley, a fifth year guard out of the University of Texas, who was drafted by the Celtics in the summer of 2010, just days after the C’s fell to the Los Angeles Lakers in seven games. Rondo’s skill set is at its best when he has great players around him. He played his best basketball when he was passing to KG, Pierce, and Allen: three players who will most definitely find themselves in the Basketball Hall of Fame as soon as they are eligible. With the exception of newcomer center Tyler Zeller, Rondo was not able to do much to elevate the play of his current Celtics teammates, and he is not enough of a scoring force in his own right to make the team competitive right now. Kelly Olynyk and Jared Sullinger are young and talented, and have plenty of upside, but they are nowhere what Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce were in 2008, and they’re nowhere near Dirk or Chandler in 2014. A change of scenery will be good for him, and so will playing for a real championship contender for the first time since the C’s went toe-to-toe with the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals and were still the greatest obstacle standing between LeBron James and a championship ring.

Now is the time to look back on Rondo’s time in Boston. In eight and a half seasons with the Celtics, he was one of the most exciting players in the NBA, as well as one of the most enigmatic. He was a tough competitor, and one of the most intelligent players in the game, but he often seemed bored by the regular season. Bill Simmons wrote of the difference between “Basic Cable Rondo” and “National TV Rondo.” He could have a very average or bad game on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee against an unproven point guard, and be able to flip a switch and transform into a completely different, dialed in player if the game was on ABC and Chris Paul or Steve Nash or Tony Parker was in town. He was an elite passer, but a bad jump shooter. Eventually, his paranoia about shooting from the free throw line limited his drives to the hoop, which were often Boston’s best chance at two points. When he was good, though, he was great. in 2010, 2011, and 2012, he was Boston’s best player in the playoffs. It was in those years that he stopped being the little brother to the New Big Three, and we instead started referring to KG, Pierce, Allen, and Rondo as “The Big Four.” He played through pain, and any frustration fans may have had with the low points of his game was wiped away by how dominant he was in the biggest games of the year. His contract was up at the end of the season, but while it would be nice to see #9 only wear a Celtics uniform for his NBA career, the Celtics should be focused on developing the young talent on their roster rather than maximizing Rondo’s window as a star in this league. Last year, the Celtics needed to evaluate where they were as an organization and they needed to ease Rondo back in his recovery from knee surgery. This season, Rondo has played full time, and they have added guards who were drafted in the first round, and the record was more or less the same as it was a year ago. It was time to move on. It would not surprise me, now that Rondo has been moved, that other veteran players Jeff Green, Brandon Bass, and Gerald Wallace get traded before the end of the 2014-15 season.

One thing that has stuck out to me with the Celtics this season has been how well the rest of the team plays without him. Their biggest win of the season came in a game he did not play, that the Celtics beat Joakim Noah and the Chicago Bulls in Chicago. In another game, Rondo barely played in crunch time down in Washington when rookie point guard Marcus Smart led a comeback against Paul Pierce and the Wizards, only to fall in double overtime against a far superior opponent. Smart was drafted out of Oklahoma State this summer with the sixth overall pick, and whether the Celtics were willing to admit it or not, was intended to be Rondo’s successor.

Kelly Olynyk, who has had his share of struggles since being drafted #13 overall out of Gonzaga in 2013, has really started to come into his own, and has turned into a scorer off the bench. It’s no coincidence, in my opinion, that Olynyk has played better since being removed from the starting lineup. As a reserve, he’s had more playing time with other point guards Evan Turner, Marcus Smart, and Phil Pressey, and he’s developed better chemistry with them than he ever had with Rondo. When Olynyk was drafted, optimistic Celtics fans hoped he had a chance, as a skinny, awkward looking white guy, to be the next Dirk or the next Larry Bird (the two most famous skinny, awkward looking white guys in the history of basketball, and I realize that;s very wishful thinking), and he’s finally living up to that pipe dream a little bit, having his first 30 point game in his NBA career last week. Some of these kids might even be the foundation of the next great Celtics team, but that’s still a few years away.

Playing with better players is not the only reason I think Rajon Rondo will thrive in Dallas. The Mavericks are a very good team in a conference of very good teams, which means that the regular season is basically already the playoffs if you’re in the Western Conference. If there was ever a situation that would allow a team to get “National TV Rondo” night in and night out, this is it. There’s Chris Paul in Los Angeles, Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas in Phoenix, Ty Lawson in Denver, Steph Curry in Golden State, Damian Lillard in Portland, Tony Parker in San Antonio, Russell Westbrook in Oklahoma City, Dante Exum in Utah, Mike Conley, Jr. in Memphis, and Jrue Holiday in New Orleans. There is an abundance of good point guards in the NBA (I mean, the Celtics had three on their roster after trading Rondo even if Jameer Nelson didn’t come to Boston in that deal), and that is most apparent in the West. He will not be able to check out mentally or take any nights off. He has his work cut out for him, and it should be a fun thing to watch.

The Celtics now find themselves rebuilding with a great college coach and the champions of years past are not walking though that door. As Celtics fans, we’ve seen this movie before, but it doesn’t seem that bad. Brad Stevens seems to be more comfortable in the NBA than Rick Pitino did, and he’s not hung up on the possibility of drafting a franchise changing player with the #1 overall pick like the C’s were banking on with some guy named Tim Duncan in 1997. It doesn’t happen overnight, but the Celtics seem to be heading in the right direction long term. Danny Ainge knows what he’s doing, and he’s built the Celtics into a winner before. They are young, they play hard, and the best basketball for the players on that team is still in the future. What Rondo did in Boston was great, but like Doc, KG, Pierce, Allen, and Perk before him, it’s time for something new.