Although he was not traded by the only team that he has played for, Boston Celtics star Rajon Rondo on Friday expressed irritation in his name often being linked to trade rumors.
Speaking to ESPN.com during the team's morning shootaround prior to playing the rival LA Lakers in Los Angeles, Rondo told the website about trade rumors: "It gets annoying at times. It's been like that the last eight years, though. It's what I do for a living. It's not who I am. I play basketball for a living, for the time being. I'll be 28 [Saturday]. I have a long life to live. I have a lot of things going on outside of basketball for me right now and it's part of what happens when you're an NBA player."
His boss, Celtics president Danny Ainge, said he was never close to trading away the franchise star, the only remaining remnant of the team's last championship squad which won it all in 2008 beating the LA Lakers 4 games to one. However, numerous media outlets were reporting that Ainge was in talks with the Houston Rockets about a Rondo trade.
Still, Ainge refuted those rumors. ESPN quoted the Celtics president as saying during an interview on Boston sports radio station 98.5 the Sports Hub: "There's been a lot of people that have had interest in Rondo, but Houston never was in the discussion with us throughout this whole trade deadline. "
Rondo was noncommittal about his future with the Celtics. The do-it-all guard is entering the last year of his contract next season and could hit the free agency market after the 2015 season. Still, he insists he has one thing on his mind.
"My mindset hasn't changed from when I came back from playing and it hasn't changed now. It didn't change in the Phoenix game because I was in a lot of trade talk. I still had one focus -- to play as hard as I can for this team and to help my teammates try to win games."
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