Fansided

Dallas Mavericks fan with a Rajon “Gonedo” jersey

By Andrew Ross

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The Rajon Rondo experiment couldn’t have gone worse in Dallas, and everyone is just ready to see him go.

Remember when the Dallas Mavericks traded the Boston Celtics for Rajon Rondo and it seemingly looked like a great move that would help them become real contenders in the deadly Western Conference? Well, things sure did change fast.

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Rondo and his new team had a lot of bumps in the road during his time with them in the regular season, but nobody made a big deal of any of it. After all, this was Rondo, a guy that had this image of only caring about the playoffs and usually turning into a mad man during the postseason – and the Mavericks had to be looking forward to that.

Dallas lost game one of the series against the Houston Rockets, but the blame couldn’t be thrown at Rondo. He didn’t play good, but his 15 points (44 percent shooting) and five assists in only 27 minutes of action was nothing terrible. However, game two was a different story. The Mavericks would go on to lose yet again, and Rondo only fought 10 minutes for his team that night. He looked like a guy that didn’t want to be out there at all by giving such little effort, making so many stupid plays and simply looking like a player that didn’t care if he won or lost.

After game two is when everything started to crumble for Rondo. The Mavericks shut him down for the series because of a “back injury,” and then head coach Rick Carlisle came out and said that he doesn’t expect to ever see Rondo in a Dallas jersey again. Those are some incredible cold words, and it’s quite refreshing to see a coach be so blunt and honest – but that’s probably just a testament to how bad things have gotten.

It doesn’t look like Dallas fans are mad at Carlisle for running this guy out-of-town, because it looks like they want the same fate.

It’s just crazy to think things got this bad this fast.

Carlisle said he doesn’t think Rondo will ever wear a Dallas jersey again because he is a free agent after this season and can sign wherever he chooses, and there’s a better chance of it raining Mountain Dew than Rondo returning to Dallas again.

The big question now is what’s Rondo’s future in the NBA? He probably could have signed a max deal anywhere in the league a couple of years ago, but his stock has dropped off an almost unbelievable amount. Surely some team will give him a mid-tier deal in the hopes of getting the every night double-double guy, but what if this is what Rondo will be for the rest of his career?

It’s hard to think that, but it’s not impossible at this point. Hopefully Rondo can sign somewhere that he wants to be, and maybe that will be all it takes to get him back to his former self.

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