Cedric Maxwell: Rajon Rondo Asked Celtics For $100M Contract Extension
Find the biggest salt shaker you can, like the one the giant would have used in Jack and the Beanstalk, and take the following information with the most massive granule possible. Rajon Rondo wants a $100 million contract, Boston Celtics radio color commentator and Rondo confidant Cedric Maxwell said in a radio interview. Rondo, who can become an unrestricted free agent at the end of next season, has taken the team’s drafting of Oklahoma State point guard Marcus Smart as writing on the wall that his days in Boston are numbered. “If you’re Rondo, you might want to start calling that moving company and say, ‘Eh, come get my stuff. I don’t think I’m going to be here too long,’ ” Maxwell told Yahoo! Sports Radio. “Rumor has it that Rondo has asked for a $100 million extension,” Maxwell said, as transcribed by WEEI.com. “You’ve got Smart, the young kid, and you’ve got (James) Young, the other kid, from Kentucky, both guards. And in the NBA system right now, the way they’re being paid, you would pay both those guys probably about $4 million for one year instead of the $100 million right now that Rondo wanted to ask for.”
This isn’t really shocking. While $100 million is a lot, it’s roughly the amount Rondo could make as a maximum-salary free agent. It’s the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, not Rondo, setting the value. Again, take all of this with a measure of incredulity. For one thing, the comparison of Smart and Young at $4 million to Rondo at $100 million is not comparing apples to apples; Rondo would not be paid $100 million for one season but over the life of a five-year contract, although Smart and Young are considerably cheaper. Also, Rondo cannot sign an extension for $100 million. The longest extension any player can sign is four years, including any years left on his existing contract, so the biggest deal Rondo could sign right now is three more years at less than $45 million. Rondo would be eligible for a five-year deal worth more than $100 million next summer, but he would first have to reach unrestricted free agency.
