Rajon Rondo has his next career lined up: 'I absolutely want to coach'

Rajon Rondo seemed perpetually at odds with former Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers during Rondo’s first seven seasons in the league, even if the two would never cop to tension. Brad Stevens followed suit in the same city during the lone half-year he spent coaching a clearly uneasy Rondo, prior to Rajon’s trade to a Dallas franchise that essentially kicked him off the team plane due to his contentious relationship with Mavs coach Rick Carlisle.

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Rondo then played for George Karl, who seemingly has problems with everyone, in Sacramento. His star-crossed turn with the Chicago Bulls has resulted in both a suspension and a benching due to his unproductive relationship with the Bulls coaching staff, even when its weaker moments still allow him opportunities to play.

This is why, of course, Rajon Rondo wants to be a coach after his playing career ends. Just as much as you or I probably wanted a career in advanced mathematics or a membership on the Adult Acne of America board back while still sulking through high school.

The Chicago Tribune’s K.C. Johnson, finding Rondo in good spirits following a string of actual game appearances, details the 30-year old’s interest:

This shouldn’t shock anyone. If anything, the most shocking part of the feature is the indication from Rajon Rondo that he’d like to play “six or seven more years” in the NBA.

There are two significant shots to that bow, if you’re unaware.

One has Rondo’s longstanding churlishness getting in the way of him forming lasting professional relationships – a deal from Chicago, which Rondo was set to explore should the benching sustain, would place him on his fifth team in 25 months. His contract for next season is only guaranteed at a quarter of the price of what he could be fully owed, and his one-year tryout in Sacramento ended poorly, despite Rondo’s apparent warm feelings about the team “you couldn’t name three people” from.

The other blow has to do with his actual play. Rajon Rondo hasn’t appeared a total millstone on the Bulls this season because the Bulls are mostly mediocre at best as it is, but the point guard is averaging just 6.9 points on unacceptable 36 percent shooting with 6.9 assists and 5.9 rebounds in 29.1 minutes per contest. He remains a porous defender and a bad fit on most teams, especially one like Chicago which features such terrible spacing to begin with:

The idea of Rajon Rondo playing NBA basketball until the season 2022-23 (or a seventh season, 2023-24!) seems rather ridiculous when he’s probably down to his final NBA chance once the Bulls de-commit to him over the summer, but the coaching idea?

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?

Former NBA stars, by nature, tend not to make great NBA head coaches. Eight out of ten of the league’s all-time winningest coaches, though, played either NBA or ABA (Larry Brown) ball, and you’ve got to be pretty damn good to play at the pro level. Only three of those nine – Brown, Lenny Wilkens and Jerry Sloan – made an All-Star team, though.

Rondo made four of those squads before dropping off severely in the years since his 2013 ACL tear. This places him squarely, if not a notch above, Brown and Sloan, probably approximating Lenny Wilkens’ playing career (almost alarmingly to a tee) had he stayed healthy.

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Wilkens, a nine-time All-Star, never seemed to have a problem with St. Louis coach Harry “the Horse” Gallatin, in a sentence that will probably read as archaic to each and every one of our younger readers. Sloan and Brown were as combative as they came, but never to a point where their various head coaches would have a problem with the duo. No other ex-player in the list (Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Rick Adelman, Don Nelson … even George Karl) appeared to have significant issues with any of their head coaches.

Rajon Rondo? He’s had simmering-to-significant issues with each of his NBA head coaches.

Of course, it’s not the head coaches, here, who are doing the voting.

If those grumbly sorts had their way, immediate head coaching types like ex-players Doc Rivers, Mark Jackson, Jason Kidd and Derek Fisher would have not seen their coaching careers percolate as distinctly as actually happened. Phil Jackson wouldn’t have gotten a first or second job with the Los Angeles Lakers, to say nothing of a third (or gig with New York), after basically interviewing for Jeff Van Gundy’s active job in 1999. If coaches had the rule of things Michael Malone would be asked to stay clean-shaven, and the entire crew would probably like to talk to Tom Thibodeau about his postgame decorum.

It takes a team, and especially a team owner, to make the call. And it is team owners, especially, that go for the bigger names available – it’s why Dallas, Sacramento and Chicago (to varying degrees, with dissimilar impetus) all went after Rondo on his last three major transactions. It’s why two NBA owners became smitten with Kidd as coach immediately after his playing career ended, and it is why even irascible coaching types (like Karl and Brown) secure new gigs.

Owners like a star, and compared to other coaching candidates Rajon Rondo qualifies as one.

He also possesses a brilliant basketball mind, even if it often leads him astray in significant ways both on the court and in talks with the press afterward. He is completely suited, at least when it comes to information supply, to be a sought-after member of an NBA team once his playing career has ended. If he can soften the edges a little bit, to say the absolute least, teams will be interested.

No team, outside of his current one, has as many reasons to dislike Rajon Rondo as the Dallas Mavericks do, especially after they showcased a very public divorce in 2014. However, when asked why he did not call a timeout late in the fourth quarter in a game on Tuesday with his team down two, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle credited the prescient defensive fear of “Rondo,” because Rajon “knows all the plays.”

Not just because he used to be a Maverick. But because he’s Rajon Rondo, maverick.

Probably not a good point guard at this point, but possibly a fantastic coach.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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