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The Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to sign Rajon Rondo for a one year contract worth $ 9 million, according to Adrian Wojnarowski, of ESPN. So continue a curious series of movements. Since securing LeBron James' commitment, the Lakers would have agreed with Lance Stephenson, JaVale McGee, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Rondo. What used to be a superteam starter kit is now one of the oddest alignments in the league.
Signing Rondo does not prevent the Lakers from chasing other stars, even if it forces them to handle a complicated fit. Rondo puts more demands on the composition of a team than most other leaders in the league; his game is so unbalanced that teams have to structure all their rotation around what he or she can not or do not want to do. Those who do it successfully can reap the benefits of Rondo's vision and instincts. His talents are indisputable. What is involved, as always, is the cost of the basketball that accompanies them.
In this respect, the Lakers are strangers more than most of the others. If there was a quality essential to building a successful offense around LeBron, it would be spacing. Yet between Rondo, Stephenson and Lonzo Ball, Los Angeles now has three ball-dominant guards without the shot ability to keep the defenses honest. Even some of the best Lakers shooters in theory, like Caldwell-Pope, have an unusual track record. There is a proven formula for building a rival team around James. The Lakers are now operating in the voluntary ignorance of it.
Their approach is not without its benefits. If there is one quality that LeBron values in a teammate above all others, it's intelligence. No shooting, no defense, no engine. Intelligence. James respects the players who can find the right game in the haze of the competition. As far as he seeks to control the action, LeBron needs relief. "We need a f *** ing point guard," he pleaded last season after summoning a select group of reporters. He was right. There is something to be said for shooting, but James knows the weight of an attack well. He knows where his creation alone can take a team and where it can not. It is there that this movement makes sense. Rondo, if nothing else, is a f *** ing point guard.
Maybe that will be enough. The question is less Rondo than it is the overlap between Rondo and Stephenson and Ball and James and even Brandon Ingram. Given the location of the Lakers and the uncertainty surrounding their list, it is impossible to make a final judgment. Ball might not even be on the list as the season begins. Stephenson could end a benchwarmer. The adjustment is ephemeral. Nothing in the game of Rondo makes him an ideal choice for the Lakers, but a move – like, say, an exchange for Angelino Kawhi Leonard – could change so much what surrounds it.
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