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Most Los Angeles Lakers Fans agreed that Rajon Rondo was a relative train wreck this season. During the regular season it was hard to watch, but Playoff Rondo has emerged (even if he doesn't believe it), and he all but won Game's 2 and 3 for the Lakers.
On the Locked On Lakers Podcast, hosts Anthony Irwin and Pete Zayas explained why a veteran player like Rajon Rondo can just turn it on, and why watching Rondo in the regular season was worth it for this version in the playoffs.
Anthony Irwin: What if the Lakers kind of dealt with what they had to deal with with Rondo, knowing that the best version of them is going to have him play some kind of a role. And here we are seeing, even as frustrating as the regular season was and will continue to be, improved play, probably next year, too. But they probably incurred a couple L's over the course of the regular season to try to get Rondo ready, and now they are benefiting from a Rondo who is more ready to play given that they need that kind of a player.
Pete Zayas: Yeah, his level of engagement and focus and you know, just the amount of force that he's playing with, the speed and all of that… The more and more I've watched… and I think this very solidly with with Rondo… The regular season, when you're a really good team, is kind of an 82 game preseason, right? Because nothing that notable is going to to happen aside from injury, right? We saw this with the Lakers during the Shaq & Kobe years, right?
There's a couple times we were a two seed or a three seed with those title teams. So, with a guy like Rondo who's had some injury issues too, right? He's 33 or maybe turned 34… how often can he go to this place? How often can you access it? There's an argument to be made what's the point of accessing it in the regular season? Right. And I also think that part of this, I think Houston is a particularly good matchup for Rajon because they're not they're not big. I'm concerned about him against big teams when they're in transition.
