Rajon Rondo, apparently, will be among those in play to receive a max contract during free agency this summer.
To which I say: Oh.
Here’s the low-down from Sporting News’ Sean Deveney:
“I don’t know whether he will quite get the maximum, mostly because we don’t know what the max is going to be,” one Eastern Conference general manager told Sporting News. “But there is going to be a lot of money on the market and only a handful of players who you would really say are max guys. If Rajon were to keep playing the way he’s been playing, if he is not getting the max next year, it’ll be close.”
…
Even Carlisle told reporters this week, “He’s a max player next year. Someone’s going to have to back up the truck to get him.”
…
“It would not surprise me at all if he winds up with a max deal next summer,” another league executive told Sporting News. “Maybe not for five years, but a three-year deal or something like that. But if he stays healthy, I would expect the money to be around max. But let’s see how the year goes.”
OK, um, for starters, I don’t want any of these execs—except maybe Rick Carlisle—in charge of any NBA team I own.
It’s true that Rondo is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. He’s back to flirting with triple-doubles nightly, and he has not been the source of discontent in anonymously sourced reports.
To the contrary, all indications are he’s been one of the Sacramento Kings’ most steadying presences in the early going of 2015-16.
That doesn’t mean he’s getting a max deal next summer.
Because he won’t.
Or at least shouldn’t.
Though his box-score lines are intriguing, and while he’s shooting a career-best 36.7 percent from downtown, the Kings, per NBA.com, are worse on both offense and defense when he’s in the game. The sample size isn’t huge (under 300 minutes), but franchise point guards are supposed to have a positive impact on the offense no matter what. The Los Angeles Clippers, for instance, are a net-plus with Chris Paul on the floor, not a net-minus.
Maybe Rondo has a more profound impact on a different (read: much better) team. But a max contract? Puh-lease.
Any max deal under the new salary cap for someone who has been in the league as long as Rondo will start at $25 million in 2015-16. No self-respecting team is giving even the improved Rondo that much coin—not when the best version of himself over the last five years is failing to leave a positive statistical imprint on Sacramento’s performance.
