CLEVELAND -- Rajon Rondo's presence on the Chicago Bulls' roster is the embodiment of the front-office indecision that continues to hover over this team.
Rondo had one of his better games of the season in Saturday night's 117-99 win over the LeBron James-less Cleveland Cavaliers. The veteran point guard scored 15 points and dished out five assists in 25 minutes of play. The fact that he played 25 minutes at all is the issue.
Since signing with the Bulls over the summer, Rondo has been praised repeatedly for his attitude and work ethic. He gets along with his teammates and has served as a mentor for several younger players on the roster. He stood up for that group of players last month in an Instagram post that ripped veterans Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler for calling out the young group. The major issue Rondo had was when he was suspended for a game in December after getting into a verbal altercation with assistant coach Jim Boylen and flipping a towel in his face.
Rondo has had issues with head coach Fred Hoiberg's communication, especially after he was benched for five games in late December, but so have a lot of players on the roster. All along, Rondo's presence -- and to a lesser extent, Wade's -- felt like a puzzle piece that didn't fit on a team that was trying to develop young players while remaining competitive. Bulls executives Gar Forman and John Paxson sold Rondo and Wade as the type of veterans younger players could learn from. At most turns this year, that has been the case.
Rondo has acknowledged being frustrated that the role the Bulls sold him is different from the one he has now. That role would likely be much different had Wade not fallen into the Bulls' lap after a disagreement with Pat Riley and the Miami Heat last summer. Such is life in the NBA; things happen, and players have to adjust to new surroundings. The Bulls' surroundings changed Thursday after the team sent Taj Gibson and Doug McDermott to the Oklahoma City Thunder for a package centered around young point guard Cameron Payne.
With the acquisition, the Bulls have five point guards on the roster, and that doesn't include Jimmy Butler and Wade, both of whom run the offense at times. Paxson noted that part of the reason the Bulls made the deal was so rookie Denzel Valentine would get the chance to play in the rotation. The problem for the Bulls is that while Hoiberg is open to playing some of his younger players more -- he said after Saturday's win that Payne's playing time will increase as he gets comfortable with the offense -- the coach still wants to win.
If Hoiberg is trying to win, that means he will continue to lean on Rondo for longer stretches, like he did at the end of the game Saturday.
"It's a fine line, I guess, for us right now," Hoiberg said recently. "With developing young guys, but at the same time we're still competing for the playoffs. So we got to do everything we can to put ourselves in a position to win, and that's the bottom line. Right now, I like the way Rajon's playing, and he's going to stay in the lineup."
As a coach, Hoiberg is making the right call. Even though he benched Rondo for a stretch earlier in the year, he trusts the veteran point guard more than any of the other point guards on the roster. The issue is that Rondo's minutes are blocking the younger guards, such as Jerian Grant, Michael Carter-Williams (who sat out Saturday's game because of patellar tendonitis), Payne or Valentine, from getting those crucial minutes at the end of games.
That's the heart of the Bulls' problem right now in regard to choosing a path to take for the future. Paxson and Forman both say the organization has a plan, but if that's the case, it's one the rest of the basketball world can't see. Do they want to rebuild around young players or languish in mediocrity around Butler and some past-their-prime veterans? It's the question that nobody within the Bulls organization can clearly answer.
"I don't feel like we're developing the guys for the future," Wade said. "I feel like we're giving guys [an] opportunity to play and see what they can do with it. Denzel is a guy [the front office selected] for their first pick [last year], and he's shown us glimpses of what he can do. And now with Doug not being here, he's getting the opportunity, and he's taking advantage of it. So I don't look at it like we're out there developing guys. You develop, man, in practice. You develop behind the scenes. You're just getting opportunities. As an NBA player, if you get an opportunity, you either going to do it or you ain't. And that kid [Valentine] is doing a good job with his opportunity right now."
Butler, who didn't play much his first season, behind veteran Luol Deng, echoed those sentiments.
"Once you get in this league, you're a man within yourself," Butler said. "Nobody feels bad if you're 18 or if you come in at 25. You got a job to do. You got to continue to get better and stick to your strengths. I think everybody's doing that. Young, older, I think that as long as everybody's to their strengths, it doesn't matter how old you are."
The difference is that early in his career, Butler was playing on teams that felt they had legitimate chances to win a title. The Bulls are playing for ... what, exactly? The front office would like to make the playoffs, but will that come at the cost of playing a veteran such as Rondo more minutes when there's a slew of younger guards on the roster who could use the experience?
Hoiberg deserves a lot of blame for a variety of reasons as the Bulls continue to struggle to find an identity, but in this situation, the quandary that comes from having a logjam of point guards on the roster falls at the feet of Paxson and Forman, not the second-year coach.
In the last two months of the season, Hoiberg made it clear that he'll continue riding Rondo down the stretch in games if the guard proves he can make the most of his opportunity.
"We're going to go with the guy that's going to give us the best chance to win," Hoiberg said. "Whoever that might be on any particular night."
That type of uncertainty sounds about right for an organization that is struggling to find its way on and off the floor.
