Sports: Rajon Rondo, a key player in the 2020 NBA championship run, is returning to the Lakers.
One-year deal would return 35-year-old to L.A.
The Lakers are bringing back a hallowed member of the 2020 championship team: Rajon Rondo.
The 35-year-old guard is expected to sign with the Lakers on a veteran minimum deal after completing a buyout with the Memphis Grizzlies and clearing waivers, according to ESPN.
Rondo previously spent two seasons with the Lakers from 2018 to 2020, culminating with the title in the bubble at Disney World. The veteran point guard maintains a high level of esteem among coaches and teammates from that group, who credit his mental preparation and mid-game adjustments with helping propel them to the top.
The 8.1 points and 6.5 assists he averaged in that tenure don’t quite capture his influence. Coach Frank Vogel said last season that Rondo was “a big part of our culture” who was missed after departing in free agency; assistant coach Phil Handy said Rondo was
“as locked in as any player I’ve been around” when the Lakers went to the Finals. The biggest endorsement of all came from LeBron James, who often referred to Rondo as a peer when it comes to processing the game.
“Being able to make adjustments on the fly and being able to see how defenses are playing,” James said during that postseason of Rondo, “and being able to see how the game is being played and being able to see how the flow of the game is being played — there’s not many guys that can do that in our league and in the postseason, it’s gigantic.”
Rondo also shot 40% from 3-point range during that title run.
The biggest question for Rondo, as it is with several Lakers this season, is whether age will limit his impact. He played for the Atlanta Hawks and the Clippers last season, and had waning on-court impact for the Clippers as they advanced to the Western Conference Finals. In the last series, he played just 47 total minutes in three of the six games.
Rondo also has continually dealt with injury. He hasn’t played more than 48 games since the 201718 season, including several injuries when he last played for the Lakers.
The Lakers now project to have nine players who are 32 or older next season, by far the oldest roster in the NBA. They have four of the five active leaders in games played (James, Carmelo Anthony, Trevor Ariza and Dwight Howard) and three more of the top 21 (Russell Westbrook, Rondo and Marc Gasol).
There could be a little diplomacy required for the signing. When the
Lakers faced the Houston Rockets in the 2020 Western Conference semifinals, Rondo’s brother William Rondo was ejected after getting in a verbal spat with then-Rocket Russell Westbrook, the Lakers’ newly acquired star.
The Lakers, who are over the luxury tax mark, now have two roster spots remaining.