Rajon Rondo wasn’t initially named to the All-Star team this year, but he made it in when tendinitis in Joe Johnson’s left knee forced him to sit it out. Celtics head coach Doc Rivers thought that the snub to that point had bothered his point guard a little bit, which might have had something to do with the way Rondo reacted when a foul call didn’t go his way in a game against the Pistons last week.
Rondo threw the ball at the official, and as a result, he received a two-game suspension that kept him out of action until the All-Star break.
At the media availability in Orlando on Friday, Rondo was asked about the suspension. And as he tends to do when discussing topics that are a bit touchy, the answers were short, and often followed by an awkward silence. It went something like this:
What did you think about while missing those two games?
“I just got some rest,” he said.
But it had to be difficult to know that you weren’t there for your teammates, right?
“Yeah, it was. But that’s in the past. I made a mistake, and it is what it is.”
Did you learn from it?
“I don’t think you guys will see that again from me,” he said, cracking a seldom-used smile. “So obviously I’ve learned from it, but I made an emotional play and just felt things were different, and I reacted the way I reacted.”
And did Doc Rivers say anything to him about it?
“It was a foul,” he said.
Following that pleasant exchange, Rondo did actually open up a bit about how he views his leadership abilities and how he might improve in that area, so go ahead and check out the rest of the interview in the video clip above.
