Well, at least Rajon Rondo is honest.
Maybe too honest.
On Tuesday night, Rondo got to talking about the expectations for the Sacramento Kings this season. While he would say he thinks that they can exceed expectations, he did so while admitting expectations aren’t high to begin with.
Per ESPN.com’s Baxter Holmes:
Rajon Rondo told me of Kings: "We’ve got a lot of talent and we have no expectations. We have an opportunity to shock a lot of people."
— Baxter Holmes (@BaxterHolmes) October 14, 2015
Holmes provided some clarification, presumably trying imply that Rondo wasn’t offhandedly throwing his team under the bus:
By no expectations, Rondo was of course referring to those outside the organization. Few expect much of Kings. ESPN projects 31-51 record.
— Baxter Holmes (@BaxterHolmes) October 14, 2015
Nothing is wrong with what Rondo said, of course. But it does reflect where the Kings are as a franchise. They forked over some first-round goodies and Nik Stauskas in order to create a bounty of cap space this past summer. They then used that cap space to land seasoned talent like Rondo, Kosta Koufos and Marco Belinelli.
Not surprisingly, those moves, Rondo’s addition included, have done little to sell people on the idea that Sacramento can contend for a playoff spot next season.
Head coach George Karl is an offensive mastermind, and if he can find a way to incorporate Willie Cauley-Stein into the rotation without killing the Kings’ spacing (i.e. getting DeMarcus Cousins to hit threes), this team could be fn. But a playoff team? In the Western Conference? Nah.
Rondo isn’t the player he once was. The game has passed him by in the sense it readily exploits ball-dominant guards who can’t shoot. And unless he’s finally going to develop a consistent jumper, his ability to make a profoundly positive impact on the offensive end will be a constant struggle.
Yes, the Kings have talent. Cousins is the best center in the game, and, again, Karl should be more open to trotting out spacing friendly lineups that can keep pace with the rest of the league.
But the Kings, like Rondo said, aren’t expected to make any noise for a reason. They haven’t cracked the 30-win plateau in seven years, and even after a busy and expensive offseason, they hardly appear any closer to ending a streak as ostensibly trivial as failing to win 36.6 percent of their games.
