3 Cavs players to watch during their upcoming 6-game Western road trip

3 Cavs players to watch during their upcoming West road trip: #1- Rajon Rondo

As we hit on, Rondo is not the player he once was earlier on in his career with the Boston Celtics, clearly, and that was a while ago at this point.

That said, he’s a four-time All-Star and has led the league in assists four times, and in recent seasons when he’s been regularly involved, has still proven to be a productive distributor with the Lakers, some with the Atlanta Hawks last season and during the postseason with the LA Clippers last season. In Rondo’s past four seasons, he’s still had 9.2 assists per-36 minutes, and in the past three seasons, has had a respectable 4.6 assists in 18.4 minutes per outing.

Rondo has had 5.8 points per game over the last three seasons, and just 3.7 per outing in 18 appearances this season with the Lakers, so it’s apparent he’s not nearly the driving presence he once was. I acknowledge that, and Rondo’s not the pull-up shooting presence, nor has the willingness to take those the way Rubio does.

Even still, I do still think with the early buy-in reportedly there with Rondo, in particular, that he can still make a difference for the Cavaliers feasibly for the rest of the season with his passing abilities and pick-and-roll feel, and thanks to his basketball IQ.

It’ll be interesting to see how Rondo does with seemingly a notable bench playmaking role in-store for him, and he’ll reportedly get time with Darius Garland as well.

Hopefully Rondo’s conditioning/wind is there, though, as he was recently cleared from COVID-19 health and safety protocols, similarly to Garland, who missed Cleveland’s last four games prior to returning in their close loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday.

Next up after Rondo, I’ll be looking to see if Lauri Markkanen can rebound in upcoming games on this roadie.