Rajon Rondo is the question without an answer, again

A new season brings variations of the same old riddles for the Celtics point guard.

WALTHAM, Mass. -- If it's the first day of Celtics' training camp, it must mean that Rajon Rondo is once again at an odd intersection of his star-crossed career. A long, long time ago he was the young kid asked to distribute the ball among three future Hall of Famers. Now he's the last one standing from that iconic group. Each year he's dealt with something, be it trade rumors, questions about his role or his contract status, and sometimes all three at once.

Eight years is a long time to be an enigma, yet it fits Rondo's personality just fine. Long one of the league's most unique talents, it seems unlikely that he will ever enjoy a normal existence as a player. It's his greatest attribute and his biggest weakness. Take the latest thing to become a thing: the broken hand he suffered a few days before camp that will leave him sidelined for 6-8 weeks.

Rondo said he slipped in the shower, which makes sense in a Rondo-way considering that he once told SI's Lee Jenkins that he's such a germaphobe he takes up to five showers a day. A photo was passed around the internet of the point guard at a kids' trampoline park and so the obvious conclusions were raised.

Here's Rondo's version: He went to a trampoline park on Tuesday with his daughter, who was celebrating a birthday the next day. "I did jump," he said. "Learned some new tricks with my daughter. It was a lot of fun."

On Wednesday he played softball. "Made a couple of top-10 catches, a one-hand grab and throw out to first base that was pretty good. I impressed myself with that," he said. Then he went to a different trampoline park on Thursday with his kids, where he says he didn't jump. The fall happened later that night.

"It wasn't like a banana slip," he said. "Actually almost caught myself. I landed on my knuckle on the windowsill in my home. That's what happened."

Strangely, team president Danny Ainge can relate. He also slipped in the shower this summer while in Las Vegas and wound up spending the night in the hospital. The bizarre is always normal where Rondo is concerned.

"It's not so shocking to me that that's possible," Ainge said. "In talking to the medical staff, it's an injury that happens when you land. It's not like a hitting injury or hitting a wall injury. So yeah, I wasn't certain that it was exactly what happened, but I went to visit Rondo in his home the other day and I have no reason to not believe Rajon. I've been with him for eight years and he's never lied to me that I'm aware of. I have no reason to not believe him."

As odd as this latest incident may be, it gets to the heart of something else about Rondo's tenure in Boston: there are those who just assume that there's always some deeper issue bubbling below the surface. That's the price he's paid for his nonconformity. This quality endears him to some and alienates others. There is no middle ground with Rondo, not that it concerns him much.

Rondo has said publicly on more than one occasion that he wants to stay in Boston, yet many people around the league expect the Celtics will trade him before his contract expires at the end of the season. The team steadfastly maintains that it has no intention of doing so, barring the obligatory "unless it makes us better" clause.

Round and round it goes. It won't stop until he signs a new deal, which isn't likely to happen until after the season, or he finally does get traded. "That may be something I negotiate, a no-trade clause or something like that to keep my name out of the trade rumors," Rondo joked. "It's just part of it. It's no big deal."

He's not likely to sign an extension until after the season because it would cost him a decent amount of money to do so early, a reality he and the team acknowledged.

"We tried to sign Rajon a couple of times, but it doesn't make sense for Rajon to sign," Ainge said. "If you know the collective bargaining agreement it makes no financial sense for him to re-sign. It's something we'd like to do, but under the current negotiations it's unrealistic to be able to do that."

Asked if he thought he deserved a max contract, Rondo paused for a moment as if contemplating a deep thought before answering, "Um ... Yes, I do." Sitting next to him on the makeshift podium, Ainge offered an exaggerated blink but he knows what's coming.

"A four-time All-Star by the time he's 27 years old would qualify for max based on what we've seen in the marketplace," Ainge said later. "If I was Rajon and I was Rajon's agent I would definitely say that, but since I'm negotiating against him, I'll withhold."

Ainge's offseason goal was to land a star-talent like Kevin Love. It didn't happen and now they're looking at largely the same fate as last season with a collection of young players and decent veterans who will probably win a few more games than they should but not enough to matter.

"I'm pretty smart," Rondo said. "I know this isn't a championship team. But we're going to go out there every night and fight hard." He added that he had complete trust in Ainge's ability to rebuild the roster.

Left unsaid is how how long it will take. The Celtics are only one year removed from the start of a massive overhaul, and while the owner promised fireworks at the end of last season, their offseason was more of a slow fizzle.

There were small deals here and there to add players like Tyler Zeller, Marcus Thornton and Evan Turner, along with more future picks. All of those things may one day lead to better days -- rebuilding is rarely a straight line in the NBA -- but there was a sense of pessimism around the team's facility even on a day usually filled with unchecked optimism.

Rondo's skeptics wonder if he can keep it together with a mostly unproven supporting cast. His supporters think he's primed for a huge season now that he's more than a year removed from knee surgery.

"He was motivated because he didn't play very well last year, to his standards coming off the knee injury," Ainge said. "He doesn't like to not be good. He doesn't like not being considered one of the best point guards in the game. I think that's what drives him, that's what motivates him."

His media obligations over, Rondo made his way to each station of the floor for photo shoots, radio interviews and the rest. A crew of professional photographers and reporters with cell phone cameras followed in his wake. He's the only show left in town, and no one has any idea how it will turn out. Once again, Rondo is the question without an answer.

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