Early buy-in with Cavs seems to be there for Rajon Rondo

According to reports on Thursday, it appeared to be a foregone conclusion that the Cleveland Cavaliers would be acquiring Rajon Rondo via trade from the Los Angeles Lakers.

Reports from first Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, and then Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, both of whom reported that news on Thursday on Rondo, followed those up on Friday.

It didn’t appear it’d take much to land Rondo, who is 35 years old, and from Cleveland’s end, they did so for the partially-guaranteed Denzel Valentine. The expectation is that Valentine will be waived by L.A.; for them, the deal involving Rondo was to create a roster spot, and Rondo was not a crucial contributor for the Lakers this season, really.

For the Cavaliers, it was evident that they would make a quick move to land a capable backup point guard, with Ricky Rubio suffering a torn ACL a few days ago, and Kevin Pangos is not ideally the guy to be playing that type of role.

Pangos has been playing more in the past two games with Darius Garland in COVID-19 health and safety protocols, and in Cleveland’s loss at the Washington Wizards, made a spot start. Perhaps he and reported 10-day hardship exception signing Brandon Goodwin get their share of run against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, for what it’s worth.

Either way, Pangos is realistically not a viable reserve 1 at this point, and while Rondo is not much of a pull-up presence like Rubio, nor a catch-and-shoot player, he can help in the reserve playmaking realm in non-Garland minutes. I’m not sure as far as a spot starter, but hopefully, Garland is back mid-next week. And the Cavs creating a trade exception, albeit minor, for Valentine, and going further away from the luxury tax was meaningful, too, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks noted.

Granted, with Rondo, who has been up-and-down in the last 5-6 seasons, depending on the situation, the question about his buy-in is a crucial one. He seemed to mostly be invested with the Los Angeles Lakers, and contributed in their title run in 2020, and was alright last season in a stint with the LA Clippers; the same seemingly applied with the New Orleans Pelicans in 2017-18.

That was not the case prior to that with the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks, and one is reasonable to question if Rondo would be bought-in with the Cavs.

This report from Wojnarowski regarding Rondo was good to see, though, and perhaps we’ll see him reinvigorated with Cleveland the rest of this season.

The early buy-in seems to be there for Rondo with the Cavs.

Rondo, who is on a minimum deal this season, was not nearly the contributor he was a couple of seasons ago with the Lakers, given the Russell Westbrook trade acquisition this past offseason, and others involved. Rondo had been playing more off-ball than was typically the case as well, for what it’s worth.

Even still, while he had only 3.1 points in 16.1 minutes per outing, in 18 appearances this season for L.A., he did still have 3.7 assists per contest.

The passing vision and pick-and-roll abilities as a facilitator for Rondo are still very much there, and for Cleveland, that could make a difference in stretches with Evan Mobley or Jarrett Allen as rollers. Plus, I’d expect to see some pick-and-pops with Rondo and Kevin Love, a la Rubio.

All of that said, even with Rondo not being the scoring presence of Rubio, or having the shooting willingness that Rubio displayed this season, he is still an impactful passer, from a rotational standpoint, if he’s bought into his situation. And it appears, based on that report from Woj, that he should invested into the Cavaliers’ situation.

Now, the dude is not the defender he once was, and he’s bounced around via trade for a number of seasons, but the basketball IQ he has, like Rubio, can be very meaningful for Cleveland, and should be for Darius Garland, Rondo is all the way there, if you will.

We still need to see what transpires on the court when Rondo clears protocols, of which he should seemingly be available early next week.

Generally speaking, however, with Rondo being reportedly a fan of this deal, and wanting to help these upstart Cavs, this could give Cleveland some of a lift with Rubio and of course, Collin Sexton, sidelined for the rest of this season. And we’ll see involving the situation with both from there, if they/their contracts are not traded.

Overall, it’s not clear right now, and I’m not jumping for joy about this Rondo move by Cavs general manager Koby Altman, but the Cavs are still out of luxury tax territory, and Cleveland didn’t give up anything, really, with Valentine.