Rondo is done in Dallas

@MrsTylerKSR

Five months after being traded from Boston to Dallas, it looks like Rajon Rondo's days as a Maverick are already over. Rondo was ruled out indefinitely with a back injury in the Mavericks' series against the Rockets, and after Game 2 last night, head coach Rick Carlisle implied that, injury aside, Rondo will never play another game for Dallas. The news isn't terribly surprising to anyone who has covered or interacted with Rondo over the years. He's notoriously difficult to work with, a math and basketball prodigy with major people problems. The best description I've seen of Rondo's attitude problems came from former teammate Kevin Garnett in Baxter Holmes' profile of Rondo for ESPN the Magazine earlier this month:

Garnett wants to reveal what the water bottle incident says about Rajon Rondo. Garnett sees. He reads. He knows what's going on in Dallas. He's aware of the friction, the concerns about fit. He also knows that the point guard is once again raising those age-old questions, the ones that surfaced in that Celtics film session and are resurfacing now, down the homestretch of a season with a playoff contender, prior to the most important free agency summer of Rondo's career. Questions like, What the hell is Rajon Rondo so damn mad about? And, Can you really build a franchise around a guy like that? "That's that fire, man," Garnett says, every syllable punctuated with his signature fury. "That's that alpha fire that's in you. That's that knuckle-down, I'm-not-afraid-of-anything relentless attitude, like, 'I'm coming at you and if you're not ready, then I'm coming through you.' That's what makes him who he is. I always told him, 'Don't ever apologize for that, because that's your mojo, that's what makes you who you are.' But he's got to be able to control it. 'Let that be a part of you, but control it. Don't let it control you.' "

If you haven't read it yet, take a look. Hopefully Rondo can learn to control that fire.