Top 100 NBA Players: #84

Rajon Rondo

(BBR: #147)

Rondo is easily the youngest player to appear on this list so far, and you may wonder if he has done enough in his short career to merit his placement among the all-time greats. He may not have a huge list of career accomplishments, but what he has done so far has been pretty impressive.

First of all, he has already won a championship as a starting point guard in 2008. During that season he may have been overshadowed by the "Big Three" of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen, but he wasn't far behind them in playoff production. He had more steals and assists than any other player to appear in the playoffs that year, and it quickly became clear that the Celtics were more than just 3 players.

The following season, despite only making it to the second round, he once again had the most playoff assists of any player. That season he was the best player on the Celtics in the postseason, boosting his averages to 16.9 points, 9.7 rebounds, 9.8 assists, and 2.5 steals. In 2010, he was the best playoff player for the Celtics once again, and he led them all the way back to the NBA Finals. Look at the playoff numbers for the four Celtics stars that year.

Rondo - 15.8 pts, 5.6 reb, 9.3 ast, 1.9 stl
Garnett - 15.0 pts, 7.4 reb, 2.5 ast, 1.1 stl
Pierce - 18.8 pts, 6.0 reb, 3.4 ast, 1.0 stl
Allen - 16.1 pts, 3.3 reb, 2.6 ast, 0.9 stl

Rondo was scoring and rebounding just as much as his bigger teammates, had more steals than any of them, and had more assists than all three of them combined. During the regular season he was named to the All-Defensive First Team and should have been named to the All-NBA Second Team. He has very quickly become one of the best all-around players in the league, putting up big numbers in every category.

I've included Zaslofsky's adjusted value again here, but you can see that Rondo's peak was much more impressive than Zaslofsky's, and he has been a major contributor for four straight playoff teams, winning a title (which Max didn't), leading a team to the Finals, and putting up some very strong numbers on two other teams that lost in the second round. With just five seasons under his belt, there is a very good chance we haven't even seen his peak yet. He has the potential to end up being remembered as a better player than any of his current teammates.