8 NBA Teams That Had a Horrible Summer
New Orleans Pelicans
Major Additions: Frank Jackson (drafted), Rajon Rondo (free agent)
Major Subtractions: Tyreke Evans (signed with Memphis)
Major Problems: Ladies and germs, meet the second-place finisher in the of the NBA's Summer of Inertia Award voting, your New Orleans Pelicans.
Okay, now that this awesome callback joke is out of the way, I'm going to remove my journalist hat and put on my fan hat, and offer you this opinion.
I don't like Rajon Rondo. Not one bit. Here's why.
And here's more why.
And here's more why...ahh, forget it, you get the point, that point being Rajon Rondo won't be winning the Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon.
Thing is, Rondo does still have some game left in him. His play in the aforementioned ignominious Chicago Bulls playoff loss to the Celtics (briefly) kept the ignominiousness at bay.
The Bulls took the first two games of that series, and Rondo averaged 11.5 points, 10.0 assists, 8.5 boards, and 3.5 steals during that time, while the team averaged 108.5 points. He missed the remainder of the series with a broken thumb, during which time the Bulls could only manage 90.5 PPG. A quick look at our abacus tells us that's an 18-point differential. Yikes.
If the eternally grouchy Rondo can stay healthy and keep his attitude in check, he could be a nice compliment to the Pels' medium three of DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, and Jrue Holiday. Problem is, New Orleans did little else to improve their roster, thus their second-place finish in the of the NBA's Summer of Inertia Award voting.
Takeaway: Maybe, just maybe Davis and Cousins can mesh better than they did during their half-season together last year, so maybe, just maybe, a plethora of player movement wasn't necessary this summer. Maybe.