It’s my favorite time of the week: Mailbag Monday time. The Los Angeles Lakers are rumored to officially sign Rajon Rondo after a buyout with the Memphis Grizzlies this week, so naturally most questions are about the former Laker turned future Laker.
Let’s get started.
have you heard the news that Rondo is going to sign with the Lakers?
— David Chia (@chiapet74) August 29, 2021
Should Rondo's statue pose be:
a) throwing hands at CP3?
b) being lifted into the air by LeBron after hitting the buzzer beater against BOS?
c) championship celebration with his son?— David Chia (@chiapet74) August 30, 2021
David ascended to some spiritual awakening with all this new Rondo news so I guess I can throw him a bone here.
I will say it’s a bit of an upset that he’s giving me three options for a Rondo statue when the real answer is that they should build all three of them.
The best part of signing Rondo again is that there’s a chance he wins more titles with the Lakers than with the Celtics and that’s just a beautiful thing to think about.
The second best part is that we get to revisit this iconic photo of Rondo and his son celebrating the 2020 title. He should start a music career just so he can make that the album cover.
with Rondo probably being signed do you think that one of the guards is susceptible to being traded at the deadline or do you think Rondo will be more of a 3rd string player?
— nagarf (@nagarf1) August 30, 2021
On a more serious note, we should talk about Rondo’s playing time and what it means for the rest of the rotation. The veteran will be the Lakers’ third point guard (I don’t really consider Talen Horton-Tucker a point guard even though he can be an emergency option).
You can look at it from a couple of different perspectives. Rondo probably doesn’t sign with the Lakers if he doesn’t think he’ll get some level of playing time. The Lakers, meanwhile, probably don’t sign Rondo if they don’t have an assigned and likely limited role for the point guard. You would imagine that conversation has already been had, especially after starting assurances to Dennis Schröder and Andre Drummond worked to the Lakers’detriment. We do know that the three people with the most power in the locker room – Frank Vogel, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis – all really like Rondo.
To me, Rondo has a few uses for the Lakers. One, he has a different profile to Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Nunn so he can offer the team different strengths when needed. Two, he provides veteran experience and mentorship that can help Nunn and THT develop on the fly while also putting some pressure on them to perform. Three, he is some insurance in the event that Nunn, who I am not the biggest fan of, doesn’t pan out.
So to answer the question, I don’t think the Lakers are planning to trade any of the guards right now but I do think Nunn is tradeable, especially since he is not on a minimum deal, and Rondo gives the team some added insurance if the former Heat guard gets moved at the deadline.
How do you feel about Donda pic.twitter.com/0wjZf7UCUZ
— RxdicalForever (@RxdicalF) August 29, 2021
My thoughts on Donda right now are mostly encapsulated by this:
It’s kind of hard for me to get excited about new Kanye these days because of all the, let’s call it weird stuff he says and because I don’t think his new music is particularly good. It doesn’t help that this new album is almost two hours long. I’ll probably listen to it at some point but I need some time to get ready.
That said, I have been listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy again a lot recently and that thing is just littered with hits.
That’ll do it for this week’s mailbag. Make sure to keep sending in questions every week so we can make this as enjoyable for everyone as possible. You can always hit us up on Twitter or through e-mail. And let us know what your favorite Kanye album is.
