Rondo Under Fire For Skipping Trip To Sacramento?
BOSTON (CBS) - Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo is facing some scrutiny after deciding to skip the team's trip to Sacramento and celebrate his birthday in Los Angeles over the weekend.
According to Steve Bulpett of The Boston Herald, the now-28-year-old Rondo did not receive permission to miss the team's trip from L.A. to Sacramento. The point guard was not expected to play in Saturday night's game, being the second leg of a back-to-back, but there are some in the organization (and plenty outside of it) that are displeased with the C's captain's decision to stay in Los Angeles.
According to the Herald, Rondo's wife and kids were with him in L.A. and had made plans to celebrate his birthday. Rondo did not comment about the situation ahead of Monday night's loss to the Jazz in Utah.
"We already talked about it," said Rondo, who scored 18 points and dished out 10 assists on Monday night. "There's nothing to talk about."
That is different from what Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge told the Herald about the situation though.
"I plan on talking to Rondo when he gets back into town," Ainge said to the Herald. "I'll find out more about what went into it, and then we'll handle it internally. We handle all of those kind of issues internally."
Rondo has been sitting out the second parts of back-to-backs since returning from a torn ACL in mid-January. There was one instance this season where he remained in Boston as the team traveled to Milwaukee on February 10 for the second leg of a back-to-back, but the difference between now and then is Rondo had permission.
CSNNE's play-by-play man Mike Gorman was on with Toucher & Rich on Tuesday, and doesn't think this should be a big deal.
"I'm not shocked, and I'm not going to hold Rondo's feet to the fire for that one. I watched him all season long -- when he wasn't playing -- make every road trip with this team," said Gorman. "All through the preseason and all through the regular season he didn't miss a single road trip and didn't play a minute of action, where a lot of guys would have said 'I'm going to rehab, see you.'"
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Given some of Rondo's past antics and the fact he was named the team's captain upon his return earlier this season, you would hope something like this would have been discussed with the team before he made his decision. But chances are Ainge and Rondo will have a chat, the point guard may get hit with a fine, and we never hear of this again.
At least until the next incident pops up.
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