Doc Rivers wasn't sold on Rajon Rondo before the team acquired him in a 2006 NBA Draft Trade from the Phoenix Suns, per River's comments in an interview on Kevin Garnett & Paul Pierce's podcast “KG Certified”. Ahead of the 2006-2007 season, then-Celtics general manager Danny Ainge had a conversation with then-Boston coach Doc Rivers about acquiring the Kentucky guard.
“When Danny made a bad draft pick, you never read that document. You wanted somebody else, right? Or when I said, ‘Let's go with this guy,' you never read that Danny wanted somebody else. I mean, Rondo was a great example. So Danny came to me before the season and said, ‘Hey, I want you to look at this tape with Rondo.' I looked at him like, ‘He can't play. This guy can't play.' That's what I'm looking at, that's what you said originally about Rondo when I first saw him. ‘Oh, wow.' But then I kept looking, and I said, ‘Man, this dude can… you know, you start seeing it.' Then I called all the coaches at Kentucky, and the report wasn't very good about Rondo. So I'm worried. But Danny said, “Hey, you trust me. Yeah, we got it.” And two days into the camp, I'm like, ‘Oh man, we got a steal. But no one knew that. Danny never said, ‘Hey, I always wanted him.'”
It's clear that the Celtics made the right choice in drafting Rajon Rondo. Rondo quickly emerged as one of the best point guards in the NBA and was a perfect floor general during the Big 3 era. He upped his play the first year that Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, and Kevin Garnett, averaging 10.6 points and 5 assists. He got better every year increasing his totals to 11 PPG and 8 APG per game in the 2008-2009 season and 13.7 PPG and 9.8 APG in the 2009-2010 season.
Rajon Rondo will surely be a Hall of Famer in the future and it's safe to say that Danny Ainge was current in his analysis of the potential of the championship-winning guard.
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