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"FacebookPinterestGetty Images\n\nWhen Chris Paul was on the market, the Boston Celtics tried to swap Rajon Rondo, their own All-Star point guard, for Paul. Rondo is an elite, if quizzical, playmaker, but he's no CP3; Rondo should be an All-Star until he can no longer lift a finger; Paul practically defines the modern-day MVP candidate. This very particular rumor, coupled with the Celtics' lingering confusion over their best player, was enough to insert Rondo into the rumor mill. He's stuck around there to this day, albeit in a ghostly, very Rondo-ish way that's urgent, befuddling, and possibly a typo.\n\nRajon Rondo almost certainly won't be traded today. It says more about the Celtics, and Rondo himself, that his name has lingered at all. There's no questioning Rondo's value as a pure point guard, in an almost anachronistic sense. He's the best player on the rapidly aging roster. The concern is that, without The Big Three, Rondo will be forced to self-start, or at least animate far lesser players. He's sublime at what he does, but not complete enough that he can be counted on nightly to carry the team by himself.\n\nRondo makes others better, while missing that certain something that makes the Celtics confident enough to hand him the keys to the franchise. Does a donut have a hole in the middle, or is it a ring? Rondo is a riddle, and in the wide world of sports, this makes him an inconvenience. That alone may explain why the Celtics might prefer life without him.\n\nRondo has spent all season fielding questions about his future with the team. He seems to have gotten comfortable with the routine, partly because the rumors about him just aren't all that convincing. Yet the dismal subtext\u2014that the Celtics simply don't know what to make of Rajon Rondo, and have no idea how to plan ahead because of it\u2014has to stick with a player. Chris Ryan wrote yesterday about Pau Gasol's gleaming professionalism in the face of trade talk. There's a difference between accepting that the NBA is a business, and being told repeatedly that your team simply doesn't quite know what to make of you. Luckily, Rondo has always seemed to thrive as an outsider, even as he's become absolutely integral to the Celtics.\n\nWhere We Would Like to See Him Go: The most lively trade thought involving Rondo had the Lakers giving up Pau Gasol to replace Derek Fisher and effectively weaponize their backcourt. It would be fantastic for Rondo, and the Lakers, and turn that team lethal. However, it makes little to no sense from the Celtics' standpoint. The truth is, Rondo is almost certainly not going to be traded, and the limbo he's experiencing (and the way he's stayed a trade \"item\") is more about the relationship between him and the Celtics than it is any possible transaction. Sometimes, the trading block is a really just existential limbo.\n\nReally, we just want him to find inner peace, if he hasn't already. Presumably, after this week, these half-voiced rumors will be forgotten, and the Celtics will accept that they just might have to face the next few years with Rondo at the control panel."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/home-and-away-where-rajon-rondo-isnt-headed-and-where-he-wont-go>