You have to figure a Rajon Rondo suspension or two was built into the Bulls’ master plan this season, the way cracked shells are part of the cost of doing business in the egg industry.
Rondo has a long history of going off on people, so the point guard’s one-game suspension Monday for yelling at a Bulls assistant coach during a game wasn’t exactly a shocker. You get used to this sort of thing from “challenging’’ personalities in pro sports. Bears teammates used to tiptoe around wide receiver Brandon Marshall. You can hear the same faint patter of feet around Rondo.
Whether he can play well isn’t the issue. It’s whether he can play well with others. That’s what it has always been, as his six previous suspensions since 2012 prove. But he’s good at running an offense, and sometimes in sports – oftentimes in sports – bosses make exceptions that would never be made in real life.
Rondo’s suspension is a reminder of the delicateness of the dynamic involved here. Things feel tenuous, no matter what the Bulls’ 11-8 record might say heading into Monday’s game against Portland. It’s hard to have a feel for this team in what is still the infancy of the Rondo-Dwyane Wade-Jimmy Butler combine.
Since the arrival of Wade and Rondo, everyone has been very careful to point out that this is Butler’s team, in no small part because it’s so important to Butler. But you have to wonder how he feels when he sees ESPN run a photo of Wade, not Butler, whenever it is promoting an upcoming Bulls game. The network, along with large swaths of the country, apparently hasn’t gotten the memo about who owns the show in Chicago.
Wade seems to be a good influence on anyone who wants to be influenced. He has won NBA championships, he’s happy to be back home in Chicago and he has been generous about sharing the spotlight.
But he can’t see to Rondo all the time because Rondo can’t be seen to all the time. That’s the challenge for the Bulls. It’s hard to know how to work with someone when you don’t know what will set him off or what will come out of his mouth. Rondo was suspended as a King last season for directing a series of profanity-laced gay slurs at a referee. The NBA suspended him for a game. That’s what the Bulls were getting and what they were getting themselves into when they signed him to a two-year, $28 million contract in the offseason.
“Rajon, as we’ve all said, has been great,’’ Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg said Monday. “A great teammate. I’ve enjoyed the relationship that we developed, and again it’s not going to change moving forward.”
My experience is that the more people try to sell you on a changed athlete or on how a difficult athlete is misunderstood, the more likely it is that they’re praying to the heavens that it will somehow take. How often did Jay Cutler get a public-relations makeover from coaches and teammates in this town? Fifty? And what followed each time was an interception, a scowl and a lot of people wondering how they could have fallen for it again.
In a day or so, the Rondo suspension will be pushed to the side – as it should be. But it won’t be forgotten. You never forget the live wire once you’ve touched it.
I don’t know what this team is yet. Part of me wonders if we’ve seen the best it can be with an aging Wade. Another part of me wonders how good it can get if the bench starts improving. The rest of me figures there will be drama because of the personalities involved. Butler wants to win, wants to be great and wants to be famous. He’s not shy when it comes to talking about his Hollywood friends. When you’re winning, that stuff is fine. When you’re losing, it’s not exactly endearing.
Once the Bulls brought in Rondo, the idea that they were going to be drama free in the post-Derrick Rose era went down the drain. Even bringing Wade aboard had its risks, which is why he went so far out of his way to remind everyone upon arrival that he was Robin to Butler’s Batman.
Whatever. The big issue here is not whose team it is. It’s the trickiness of balancing egos in a very competitive, stressful environment. Rondo’s suspension is a reminder of that. He reportedly has apologized to the team for his outburst, and of course everyone is moving on. Until the next issue.
