Rondo Joins LeBron In LA

The ongoing NBA road trip for Rajon Rondo continued on Monday as he agreed to terms with the Los Angeles Lakers. Rondo will be joining LeBron James in Los Angeles, who agreed to a contract late last night. Rondo will play the Point Guard position for the Lakers, after signing a one year deal with the team. Rondo is expected to make somewhere in the area of 9 million dollars next season with the Lakers. Rondo has become accustomed to these short-term, one-year deals. He has played the past four seasons under these one-year contracts.

Rondo entered the league in 2006 and played from 2006 until 2014 with the Boston Celtics. Since that time, Rondo has changed teams every year. He played one year with the Dallas Mavericks, one year with the Sacramento Kings, one year with the Chicago Bulls and last year, with the New Orleans Pelicans. Rondo is a four-time NBA All-Star and won the NBA Championship in 2008 with the Boston Celtics.

Rondo went to New Orleans last year and played alongside Anthony Davis. Rondo helped take the New Orleans Pelicans to the playoffs last year, advancing to the second round after defeating the #2 seed Portland Trail Blazers as the #6 seed in the Western Conference Playoffs. The Pelicans swept the Trail Blazers in four games to advance to the second round. The Pelicans ended up losing to the Golden State Warriors in five games.

Last year with the Pelicans, Rondo was used as a pass first, shoot second type of Point Guard. Rondo ended up averaging just 8.3 points per game, but he has 8.2 assists per game over 65 games in 2018. That may not seem like a lot for a veteran like Rondo, but those assists speak volumes as he played with Anthony Davis, who was the team’s top source of offense in 2018.

The floodgates opened up in Los Angeles over 24 hour span, with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Lance Stephenson and JaVale McGee all agreeing to play in Los Angeles alongside LeBron James, and now Rajon Rondo. The Lakers also made moves on their own to open up even more space with their cap capacity, renouncing their rights to Julius Randle and providing him the ability to become an unrestricted free agent.

With Randle becoming a free agent, many people suspect that the Lakers will now attempt to sign DeMarcus Cousins. Cousins has remained quiet during the last two week, and his name has not been mentioned as much as other players on the market. Cousins is recovering from an Achilles injury that forced him out of the lineup last year and limited him to just 48 games with the New Orleans Pelicans in 2018.

One of the concerns that the Lakers must have is the fact that Rondo has been limited each of the past eight seasons in the NBA. Rondo has been injury prone and limited to a max of 70 games in each of those eight seasons.