Rajon Rondo explains why his tenure with the Dallas Mavericks didn’t work out

The Dallas Mavericks acquired star point guard Rajon Rondo in a trade from the Boston Celtics more than nine years ago, but he only lasted 46 games with the team as he outgrew his welcome and was kicked out of the team during the playoffs. He frequently clashed with then-head coach Rick Carlisle and committed fouls and eight-second violations that were unusual for a player as intelligent as Rondo.

On Tuesday morning, Rondo spoke to FanDuel TV Go back and execute During a podcast with Michelle Beadle, Shams Charania, Lou Williams and former Maverick Chandler Parsons, he was asked about his tenure in Dallas and Parsons’ break with Carlisle.

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“When I got brought to Dallas, they told me, ‘We want you to be (Jason) Kidd, we want you to be vocal, we want you to lead this offense, we want you to do what you’re supposed to do as the quarterback of the team,'” Rondo began. And I was like, ‘I can’t be J-Kidd, but I can be myself, but we have a lot of great commonalities…’ And then I got there a couple of months later, and you (Parsons) were there, you had Monta (Ellis)… The first month I got there, I was just sitting there trying to learn. I was absorbing like a sponge, trying to understand Rick’s coaching style. Where does Dirk (Nowitzki) like to play that ball, where does Parsons (Nowitzki) like to play that ball, where does Monta like to play that ball… I was trying to understand what Rick wants from his team. And in that particular game, I was manipulating the game in my mind. Dirk had made a couple baskets on one side of the court, so I was trying to flip the play to the other side. And Rick said, ‘What the (expletive) are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I think this is Kevin Garnett,’ and I said we’ll play two on one side of the court and then go to the other side and Dirk will get an easy score. And (Rick) started stomping on the court. As a guy, I was like, ‘You’re disrespectful, I’m a champion, I have a lot of respect for you, I didn’t come here and say (expletive), and you’re attacking me like I’m a junior player or a rookie… that’s disrespectful to what you brought me here for.'”

He then mentioned the playoffs against the Houston Rockets and said Coach Carlisle didn’t want to coach him anymore.

“I made a play or something, but I didn’t take the ball down the court in violation time,” Rondo continued. “And then everybody says, ‘Oh, he’s off the team,’ and I was like, ‘Why (expletive) did I leave the team, that’s not in my DNA.’ … What happened in Dallas, at the end of the season that year, I got on the phone with (former Mavericks GM) Donnie Nelson, Rick Carlisle and (agent Bill Duffy), and they said, ‘Rick doesn’t want to coach you anymore, your back hurts, so you’re not going to play.’ I said, ‘Okay, (expletive) fine,’ and I flew out to Miami and just chilled out there. So that was the story, ‘Oh, he’s off the team.’ Like (they) said, ‘Rick doesn’t want to coach you.'”

With Rondo only playing in the first two games, the Mavericks lost that series to the Rockets in five games. According to ESPN after the series, the team chose not to give Rondo any playoff money. The players vote on who will receive the money, but they were given a list of players who will receive playoff money, which did not include Rondo, but no one protested.

Rondo was acquired along with Dwight Powell, still the team’s longest-tenured Mavericks player, in exchange for Jamire Nelson, Jae Crowder, Brandan Wright, a 2016 first-round draft pick (later named Guerschon Yabusele) and a 2016 second-round draft pick (Demetrious Jackson). The Mavericks were on the brink of winning a championship, and it felt like Rondo, who led the Boston Celtics to a championship in 2008 with Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, might be the missing piece.

There are two sides to every story, and Carlisle is sure to have his own take on what happened, but this is the first time Rondo has spoken seriously about how it ended in Dallas. Carlisle, Nelson and the franchise went their separate ways after the 2021 season, with Carlisle returning to the Indiana Pacers and Dallas hiring former guard Jason Kidd, who the Mavs had been hoping for in Rondo’s place.

Kidd currently projects the Mavs to be one game away from facing Rondo’s former main team, the Celtics, in the NBA Finals, with Game 4 against the Timberwolves at 7:30 PM CST tonight.

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