Inside the Mind of Rajon Rondo Some people look at the Bulls’ new point guard and see a talented but troubled player. What does Rondo see? A man staying true to himself.

On a postpractice early afternoon at the Chicago Bulls workout facility, just across from the United Center, the players—stars and scrubs, vets and rooks—have vanished into the bowels of the building to simmer in a whirlpool, stretch a balky back, grunt and heave in the weight room. The gaggle of journalists has packed it in, too, save for a straggler murmuring questions to one of the athletes. Suddenly, having not so much appeared as materialized, Rajon Rondo is beside me. I knew I’d spaced out a little waiting on him. Still, it was a pretty neat trick, the kind of magician’s stealth, I imagine, that has made the Bulls’ new point guard one of the deftest passers and craftiest thieves in NBA history. (He ranks in the top 30 all-time in both assists and steals per game.) As Jimmy Butler put it earlier in the day, Rondo has an uncanny ability to see “things before they develop”—even and especially one of his not-so-favorite things: doing an in-depth interview. But prescience and caginess are not the only qualities he’s known for. He also has a way of getting in your face—or at least the faces of coaches, refs, and opponents—a notoriety that has dogged him throughout his career and is the chief reason he finds himself here in Chicago, playing for his fourth team in three seasons. Advertisement He is a man full of contradictions—prodigy smart and ruthlessly competitive on and off the court. (Just ask the teammates he’s schooled in his favorite off-hours obsession, Connect Four.) But he’s a genius who repeatedly does dumb things: picking fights with coaches, getting baited into on-court spats and shoving matches, and, in one case last December, unleashing a homophobic rant at a ref. At the moment, though, having lanked over to a set of bleachers along the facility’s west wall and leaned his elbows up on one of the slats, legs splayed before him on the gleaming wood floor, Rondo, 30, lolls with an almost Zen-like calm. I had been forewarned that this interview could go a few different ways—that Rondo, depending on his mood, could be combative, surly, contrarian, thoughtful, generous, or all of the above, all in the space of a few minutes. That made me a bit nervous as I read off to him a list of words that coaches, teammates, and sports pundits have used to describe him: eccentric, mercurial, enigmatic, quirky, odd, unconventional, and, hardest for me to get out, a cancer. “If you don’t know me personally, if you don’t know what I’ve put into this game, then I could give two shits what you think about me.” Rajon Rondo What comes to mind, I ask him, when he hears those? As he considers the question, I study his face. It’s a complex face that, like the man himself, is inscrutable: soft and fierce, boyish and hardened. His eyes are wide set and scaffolded by slanting brows. The forehead, high and smooth, tapers down to a long chin. His head is small—at least for his broad shoulders and preternaturally long arms and ball-mauling hands. All this combines to give him the look of another creature considered both noble and disquieting: a praying mantis. After a few moments, he looks up at me. “If you don’t know me personally, if you don’t know what I’ve put into this game, then I could give two shits about what you write about me or what you think about me,” he says, his face and demeanor remaining placid. “I am who I am. I’m unique. I’m my own self.” He lets a beat pass. “I’m a poet.” It was an unexpected but in some ways absolutely apt response to a question that has evaded the understanding of even those who know Rondo and count themselves among his biggest admirers and best friends: Who is he, really? The question is particularly pertinent to Bulls fans still reeling from a Game of Thrones off-season that saw the departure of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, two core members of a team that, until last season, had seemed ascendant. That one of their replacements was Rondo unsettled fans even more. Advertisement “Chicago Bulls Unwise to Buy into Rajon Rondo’s Heavy Baggage,” blared the headline of a Sports Illustrated article that graded the signing an F. “Chicago Bulls’ Rajon Rondo Signing Makes No Sense,” echoed Forbes. “What a fucking joke,” one wag (“your friendly BullsBlogger”) added in a post for SB Nation. “A giant middle finger from [management] to Bulls fans.” The skepticism was the only thing not stunning about the deal. Consider: Since Rondo seized the NBA spotlight in 2008 as a pivotal cog in the Boston Celtics’ most recent championship run, his career has been marked at every stop by controversy of one sort or another. First came a devastating knee injury that sidelined him for large parts of two seasons, the kind of chilling occurrence certain to cause ugly flashbacks to Rose. Then there was the bickering with head coaches, starting with the frequent jawing on the sidelines with the Celtics’ Doc Rivers, with whom he reportedly almost came to blows; after that, the rocky relationship with the Dallas Mavericks’ Rick Carlisle, who benched him repeatedly; and finally last year’s season-long strain with George Karl, then of the Sacramento Kings. On the court, Rondo has flourished—at least stats-wise. But he’s also racked up a portfolio of suspensions—six games in all, including five alone in 2012 for making contact with one referee, for flinging a ball at another, and for taking part in an on-court fight. Some of his run-ins came against a player who is now his teammate: Dwyane Wade. The two first scuffled in the 2011 Eastern Conference championship, an altercation that left Rondo with a dislocated elbow. Then in the 2012 conference finals, Rondo was hit with a flagrant foul after he yanked Wade midair on a lay-up. Rondo’s response? It was Wade who was the “dirty player.”

A homophobic-slur-laced tirade against ref Bill Kennedy last December earned Rondo a suspension. Photo: Hector Vivas/Latincontent/Getty Images The Bulls’ new floor general “instantly brought the young guys in and took them under his wing,” says head coach Fred Hoiberg. Photo: Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune

Two other factors seemed to argue against a Rondo signing: Under Bulls president John Paxson, the team has portrayed itself as committed to “character guys.” And its general manager, Gar Forman, justified trading Rose and Noah by saying the team wanted to get younger and more athletic. Rondo is certainly the latter, but at 30 years old—what many pundits call a “hard 30”—he doesn’t exactly seem the linchpin of a youth movement. Given the seeming contradictions, I asked the team’s head coach, Fred Hoiberg, about the rationale. In answering, he defended both the decision and the player. Far from being a distraction, Rondo “instantly brought the young guys in and took them under his wing and worked them out every day,” Hoiberg said. “He’s the best voice on the floor that we have. His ability to be vocal in our coverages and plays makes it easier on everybody. It rubs off on everybody.” Before the signing, in fact, Hoiberg sat down with Rondo to review film. The coach came away convinced that this was the point guard he was looking for to run an upbeat offense. “He’s one of the top guys in the league at getting the ball up the floor in a hurry,” Hoiberg told me. “If our guys are willing to run every possession, we’re going to get some easy shots at the rim, and we haven’t been getting those.” As for meshing with the team’s two other alphas, Butler and former nemesis Wade? “I’ve liked what I’ve seen,” Hoiberg said. “They’ve all bought into a leadership role, and when you’ve got as many young players as we do on this roster, you’re going to need multiple leaders.” For his part, Rondo has been nothing if not deferential, telling reporters in his first press conference, “This is Jimmy’s team.” That’s not to say that Hoiberg didn’t seek assurances. One of the first people he talked to, the Mavericks’ Carlisle, turned out to be a most unlikely advocate. “He came up to me and said, ‘You know, I think you and Rondo are going to be great,’ ” Hoiberg recalled. “You’ll be great for him, and he’ll be great for you.” Rondo shares that view. “[Hoiberg’s] personality is different than every other coach I’ve played for,” he tells me. “He’s pretty quiet. He’s not as dominant. He’s not micromanaging every play like a god. I don’t want to play for a coach who wants to stand up and call every play, so it kind of worked out both ways.” He adds, “We’re not always going to agree. That’s just part of it. We’ll continue to grow and go from there.” Easy to say. But what happens when they do disagree? Perhaps vehemently? “We come in the next day and we talk as men and we go from there,” Rondo says. “We both have a job to do. You can’t let emotions get involved with what the common goal is: to win. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.” One thing you can say about Rondo: He’s blunt. If he doesn’t agree with the premise of a question, for example, he lets it be known. Like when I ask whether it’d be silly to interpret his move to the Bulls as a chance for a “fresh start.” “Yes.” Why should he need a fresh start? he presses. “I think I had a great year last year. I had the referee incident, but I don’t think that has anything to do with my basketball play.” Indeed, his 11.7 assists per game for the Kings equaled a career high. And his 3-point shooting, at 36 percent, was his best ever. Yet he was criticized by observers for not elevating the rest of the team’s play and for generally being a pain in the ass. Even Hoiberg’s praise, while appreciated, is, in Rondo’s mind, just a simple statement of fact. “Maybe I’m looking at it wrong, but I don’t really doubt myself too much,” Rondo says.