Rajon Rondo has never been here to make friends with anyone, not even his own teammates. So when the former Celtics star was asked last month about the franchise’s plans to pay homage to Isaiah Thomas with a video tribute upon his return to Boston while he was still a member of the Cavs, Rondo offered a searing dismissal of that idea.
It’s possible Rondo was just rightfully taking sides with his former teammate Paul Pierce, who had balked at the notion of sharing the evening of his jersey retirement with IT, but Rondo clearly put a little extra mustard on his comments that IT understandably didn’t appreciate.
So when the two faced off during the Lakers’ game against the Pelicans on Wednesday night in New Orleans, things got heated fast, and it wasn’t long before both earned rejections for their respective parts in their various dust-ups during the first half.
Last month Rondo had some things to say about IT wanting a tribute video from the Celtics..
Today they got into it and were ejected 👀 pic.twitter.com/nCw0KpEkXo
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 15, 2018
Rondo and IT had been getting tangled up almost from the tip, and they didn’t even make it through the first quarter before getting tossed. After the game, Thomas confirmed that their altercation was rooted in the controversial Celtics’ video tribute.
Isaiah Thomas said Rondo brought up the video tribute kerfuffle today when they went at it. He said Rondo hit him in the face 3 times without consequence before he reacted. Says he doesn’t know Rondo and doesn’t know why Rondo reacted to him the way he did.
— Tania Ganguli (@taniaganguli) February 15, 2018
The topic of video tributes has become a divisive issue around the NBA this season, with detractors arguing that there are far too many of them for ancillary players who only had brief tenures with a given franchise. Others, however, believe in a more liberal approach and that teams should be free to use their discretion as to who they choose to honor.
The silly part about this one is that Thomas ultimately declined the Celtics’ offer for a video tribute so that it wouldn’t detract from Pierce’s jersey ceremony, which was further rendered moot by the fact that Thomas was traded away from the Cavs before that even happened.
So, really, it was much ado about nothing. Except now both Rondo’s and Thomas’ pockets will be a little lighter after they pay the fines that come along with their ejections.
