Doc has no doubt Rondo will stay put

[IEcelticfan]

After the turbulence of the past week, most of it involving Rajon Rondo [stats], normalcy might actually be possible.

Doc Rivers sounded confident that Rondo and Ray Allen - the two players most often attached to recent trade rumors - weren’t going anywhere.

“Oh yeah, absolutely,” the Celtics [team stats] coach said before last night’s draft. “I have no doubt about that. There’s always the chance someone could get traded, but it would have to be an amazing deal. But I like our team.”

Rivers also made it clear that he likes Rondo, maturity issues and all.

The two have spoken several times during the past two days, and Rivers said he never detected worry in the voice of his young point guard.

Indeed, he was able to joke about the trade talk.

“I brought it up to him,” Rivers said. “I’m very frank and honest with Rondo. I said, ‘What the hell are you doing here? You should be in one of these other cities already.’ He started laughing, and then we had a very good, frank talk. I brought up the rumors and why, and I don’t think it was a bad thing.

“Rondo’s got a lot of press lately. It’s made interesting reading for me. I didn’t know he’s done so many things. Rondo will be fine. I have no problem with Rondo.”

That includes the flaws.

Some of the issues that have come to light - Rondo’s stubbornness, for instance - are traits that Rivers admires.

“Yeah, stubbornness, ego, but those are good things too,” Rivers said. “We just have to manage him better, and he has to manage him better. I have to manage him better. There’s no doubt about that, but I’m not that concerned.

“Being the point guard, he has a bigger role in that he has to get along with everyone on the team. That’s something he has to learn, and that’s difficult. With the personalities he has to deal with at his age . . . if he was 30 and had these issues, that would be a problem. At 24, I don’t see it being as much of a problem.”

And if Rondo is something of a loner where his locker room presence is concerned, then so be it, according to his coach.

“You can be a loner as long as you’re not a loner on the floor,” Rivers said. “One thing I’ve told Rondo is that they don’t have to love you off the floor. They don’t have to respect you all the time, but they have to love playing with you.

“He’s still working out how to be a great player, and sometimes there’s some growing pains. I have no problem with that.”

That’s because Rondo doesn’t bear sole responsibility in his effort to mature. Rivers put that responsibility on himself and the team, as Rondo attempts to make good on his early success.

“We have to make him a better player. That’s our goal,” Rivers said. “I think Rondo can be an All-Star. I don’t think he’s an All-Star yet, but he will be. It’s going to take a lot of work during the summer and him maturing as a person.

“I won’t ever lose sight of his age, and that’s the thing that we can’t lose sight of.”

Rivers wrote off the recent rumors to the Celtics doing their due diligence to simply improve. According to the coach, it would take a lot to pry away Rondo.

“When you don’t win a title, people are looking at your team thinking, ‘Are you going to make a move?’ ” he said. “So I thought a lot of teams were very aggressive toward us. And Danny did his job. You have to explore who has value and what you can get.”