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Marc J. Spears at Yahoo! Sports has more details on Rajon Rondo's informal workouts that he personally put together on the eve of training camp. It's a sign of his growing maturity as the leader of this team. This is coming off the heels of Danny Ainge calling Rondo the best player on the team and earlier this summer, Doc reiterated that this was now his team.
Check out the article. There are a lot of interesting tidbits but the one thing that really stuck out for me was the importance that Rondo put on team chemistry:
"I wanted J.T. to play with Kevin. I wanted Courtney to see how Paul likes to play. I wanted Paul and Jeff Green to go at each other," Rondo told Yahoo! Sports. "I wanted to play with those guys. It was getting guys away from our actual training facility to get a new view.
"I wanted the guys to have fun. When you're with me I want you to say, 'Man, I had a good time with Rondo.' And I think that's what they did."
"The game is about tempo," Rondo said. "We don't want to make it more complicated. It's just basketball. I am just trying to get the timing with J.T. and Courtney. That is why I wanted to get to work early, so I can know where I want them to be when I drive baseline or drive to the middle and where they like the ball."
By the time training camp rolls around, he'll have a good sense of how all the parts work together and he and Doc can start game planning right off the bat. Surely, the rumored feud between him and Ray Allen will be front and center on October 30th when the Celtics open up the season in Miami and it's good to see Rondo trying to make a bigger effort in creating camaraderie with his teammates off the court, too.
One curious addition to the team's bonding session was Atlanta Hawk and best friend of RR, Josh Smith. We've talked extensively on CelticsBlog over the last two days about what a Josh Smith trade would look like if Danny Ferry decided to part ways with the talented young forward. His attendance at the team's flag football game (where "K.G. was the quarterback of the other team, but they had to sub him out because he wasn't getting any touchdowns") is a little curious. If there's anything to be critical at all with Rondo, it's that I don't want Josh Smith to know what Brandon Bass does in the slot against a Tampa 2.