During an appearance on the podcast “All the Smoke” with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson (link found on YouTube), Rajon Rondo, a point guard who has played in the NBA for a significant amount of time, stated that he had retired from the league.

When Barnes asked Rondo if his career in the NBA was gone, Rondo responded, “Absolutely,” and added that he wants to concentrate on spending time with his children more than anything else.

The 38-year-old Rondo had his final appearance in the league during the 2021-22 season, when he was a member of the Lakers and Cavaliers and participated in 39 games. Over the course of sixteen years in the National Basketball Association (NBA), he participated in 957 regular-season games and 134 additional postseason matches. He brought home championships with the Celtics in 2008 and with the Lakers in 2020.

Despite the fact that Rondo was never a particularly good scorer, he was a great passer and defender who led the league in assists per game three times and was selected to four different All-Defensive teams. He was also selected for the All-Star game in four straight seasons while playing for Boston from 2010 to 2013, and he was chosen to the third team of the All-NBA squad in 2012.

Following the completion of the first eight and a half years of his career with the Celtics, the player who had been selected 21st overall by the Kentucky Wildcats was then traded to the Dallas Mavericks. He then spent the subsequent years moving around in the National Basketball Association. Rondo has played for a number of different teams, including the Kings, the Bulls, the Pelicans, the Hawks, and the Clippers, in addition to the Lakers, Boston, Dallas, and Cleveland.

 

At the end of his career, the seasoned point guard concluded with regular season averages of 9.8 points, 7.9 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.6 steals in 29.9 minutes per game, along with a shooting line of.456/.324/.611. The website Basketball-Reference estimates that he made around $118 million in pay over the course of his career.

Although his playing time and output decreased in his later seasons, it is possible that Rondo’s departure from the National Basketball Association (NBA) was hastened by a number of legal difficulties that have arisen in recent years. His most recent arrest occurred in January of this year in Indiana, where he was taken into custody for unauthorized possession of a handgun, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia.