The Return of Rajon Rondo

Almost a year to the day after tearing his ACL, Rajon Rondo is back on the court for the Boston Celtics. He has now played 5 games since returning, with his minutes and performance enhancing every day. The night of his return he was shockingly named the new team captain, and the 15th in team history replacing now Brooklyn Net Paul Pierce. This is important because as a team clearly trying to rebuild, and with constant speculation about whether or not he would be traded, this almost surely guarantees they will do everything they can to keep him in Boston for as long as possible.

After not playing in a game for a year, and having to wear a bulky knee brace, Rondo has been less then impressive in his first few games back; including an embarrassing 0-8 with 3 turnovers and just 1 point against the Miami Heat on the 21st. Granted he has never been a spectacular shooter, but he has never been this bad either which makes me wonder just how much the knee brace impacts his performance.

Along with his increase in minutes played, he has increased his assists per game, which shows his crafty playmaking ability hasn't been hampered by the missed year. The thing I've noticed that does hurt is that he is surrounded by a cast of sub par scorers who waste a lot of his perfect passes with either dropped balls or missed shots, but this is to be expected in a rebuilding year.

Rondo displayed that he still loves the thrill of the big games as he nearly recorded a triple double in just his fourth game back since the injury on the national stage as former teammates Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett returned to Boston as opponents for the first time. His shooting was still slightly off, although the percentage was affected by being forced into rushed last second attempts in order to beat the shot clock. Overall his 13-8-8 stat line was greater then I could have expected from him this soon into his return, as he is clearly still not up to game speed health wise.

He looks sure of himself, and not hesitant to crash the paint and cut on a dime, now it's just a matter of getting accustomed to playing with the brace and getting back to full speed. By the end of the All Star break I expect him to be nearly back to his old self, but with the added expectations of being the captain and lone survivor of the 2008 Championship team he will put this team on his back and produce at a level that leaves no doubt that he is not just one of the top point guards in the league, but one of the top players in general. Now they just need to re-sign him and get him some weapons to work with.