The trade deadline will be slow, they said.
The new play-in tournament will compel teams to want to stay the course, they said.
There aren’t enough tradable draft picks to trigger much movement, they said.
The financial squeeze put on teams by the coronavirus will make them conservative, they said.
And then 23 of the 30 teams went and moved 46 roster players in a total of 16 deals – the most in 35 years on deadline day, the NBA said.
All that vibration shook the heart of Clipperdom, of course. The team swapped Lou Williams – who, with his unmistakable swagger, cemented his legacy as maybe the game’s greatest Sixth Man during his four seasons in L.A. – for Rajon Rondo, the cerebral gamer, four-time All-Star and two-time NBA champion.
Because the NBA had not signed off on the Clippers’ trade with Atlanta before the game, Tyronn Lue couldn’t discuss it until after his severely short-handed squad gutted out a fourth consecutive victory in San Antonio.
But afterward, just two days before the Clippers’ game Saturday against the Philadelphia 76ers and Doc Rivers, Lue’s predecessor and mentor, the coach reflected on why the Clippers moved to bring aboard Rondo – with whom Lue worked closely in Boston, under Rivers.
“His passing ability, his leadership, his basketball IQ – just all those intangibles that a point guard brings,” Lue said. “He’s done it at a high level with winning a championship on two different teams, the two winningest franchises in the history of the game.
“The résumé of the guys he’s played with, the guys he’s led, to these championships as well. Just being in the playoffs, a lot of dogfights in Boston and coming back last year and winning the championship with the Lakers. When he gets to the playoffs, he’s a different player and we all know that, we’ve seen it over the years.”
Lue’s relationship with Rondo, which predates even their time together in Boston between 2009-2013, shouldn’t hurt.
“I knew him through (Kevin Garnett), because KG being one of my best friends and when he first went to Boston,” Lue said. “But in my four years of coaching there, he was pretty much my project. Doc made me stay on him and he was like my little brother for the most part.”
He and Rondo have stayed connected, Lue said.
“Just watching him grow and mature throughout the years as a player and as person – as a father, as a human being – it’s just great to see.”
That personal history will inform the coach’s approach with Rondo while he works him into what the Clippers already have been building around Kawhi Leonard and Paul George this season.
“Well, the first thing you got to know what you’re talking about,” said Lue, noting that he ranks Rondo along with LeBron James and Chris Paul as the smartest players in the game.
In fact, Lue said, “he’s so smart sometimes, he’s too smart for his own good. He knows every play that’s called and everything that’s coming and he might pull out of coverage, but the other guys are not ready for it because he knows what play is coming.”
To channel that extraordinary insight, Lue said it’ll just a matter of shooting straight.
“Just tell him the truth, being honest with him,” Lue said. “He’s fiery, that’s what we need, he’s tough. He understands the game. That was my biggest thing in Boston, just being honest with him and telling him the truth and keeping it real with him.”
LUCKY RONDO
After Thursday’s win, Terance Mann revealed that Rondo has, in a sense, actually been with the Clippers for a while.
As long as Mann has been, anyway.
The second-year wing has been toting around Rondo’s rookie basketball card – a card, now far from mint condition, that he held up to show reporters on the Zoom video conference – in his wallet since he was in middle school, keeping it close even after he made it to the NBA last season.
Mann grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts, not far from Boston, where Rondo was an icon. So Mann has long admired the point guard for his smarts and his passing, he said.
But there’s even more to it, Mann said.
“The story is: Somebody gave it to me, and then I had made the A team for my travel team, and I was like, ‘They gave it to me that day and I made the A team,’” he said. “And I was like, ‘Man, it’s gotta be because of this card!’
“So I kept the card and I just kept getting better and better at basketball, and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s because of this card, I’m going to the NBA, definitely.” And I’ve just had it in my wallet ever since. It’s like a good luck charm.”
And now, as luck or fate or just bold front-office decision-making would have it, he’ll be teammates, in the NBA, with the man on that card.
“Which,” Mann said, “is crazy.”
76ers (32-13) at Clippers (30-16)
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: Staples Center
TV: Fox Sports Prime Ticket
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— Terance Mann (@terance_mann) March 26, 2021
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