Can Anything Go Right For the Celtics These Days?

When the sobering news came out on Friday night that Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo had broken his left hand, it felt like a cruel joke to a team that currently has no good luck whatsoever. It was dutifully reported by Celtics reporters that he slipped in the shower at his house, haha yeah OK. Regardless of how it happened (as long as it wasn't a domestic issue, who cares?), it casts an even deeper depression over what already promised to be another Lottery-bound season for the Green and White.

Training camp opens on Monday with their first preseason game scheduled for a week after that vs. Philadelphia. PS did you know there are eight preseason games, why exactly? Their regular season opener is October 29 vs. Brooklyn (who no longer has Paul Pierce) at TD Garden.

The ripple effects of this injury to Boston's best player are large: Rondo had surgery today but he's expected to miss between six and eight weeks so he could be out until Thanksgiving. Can the Celtics just skip this sure-to-be miserable campaign? Ugh, what a mess. I'm sure plenty of know-it-alls will fault the C's for not trading him last season (or earlier) when they had a chance. They stubbornly stuck by him as they try to rebuild one of the NBA's marquee franchises that has become completely irrelevant the last few years.

Rondo was misleadingly durable his first few seasons but I guess it makes sense that injuries are starting to pile up now (elbow, ACL, hand) since he's tiny by the NBA's cartoonish standards. He missed 95 games in the past two seasons so that total will only increase. This also means that Phil Pressey and rookie Marcus Smart (Rondo's understudy) will get much more playing time from day one which is slightly horrifying especially if your name is Brad Stevens and you'd like to win in the NBA at some point.

There just is no positive way to spin this for the Celtics. To make matters worse for all parties involved, Rondo is an unrestricted free agent after 2014-15 so his value will be even lower and I doubt there would be a real market for him. So neither he nor the team can really cash in on his unique talents. As if it hadn't already begun, I guess it's officially time to start the countdown for Tankapalooza Part 2. Haha Boston is bound to win the draft lottery at some point, right? Actually, don't answer that.

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