Rajon Rondo to Mavs? Bill Simmons Reflects on Crazy Trade of the Four-Time NBA All-Star

"You do the lead in, I'm too bummed out," ESPN Grantland basketball hour and Grantland.com editor-in-chief host Bill Simmons said. Hours after Simmons' beloved Boston Celtics traded point guard Rajon Rondo to the Dallas Mavericks, Simmons could barely speak.

The Mavericks are currently 19-8 and sixth in the Western Conference. Adding Rondo to a starting five of Dirk Nowitzki, Monta Ellis, Tyson Chandler and Chandler Parsons makes the Mavericks a dynamic, versatile threat.

Losing Rondo turns the Celtics' season, which started 9-14, hopeless. They sit just one half game out of a playoff spot now, but the roster turnover clearly means the front office doesn't think they can contend.

That is what bummed Simmons out.

He eventually got over it and started talking.

"I think there was a little bit of self sabatoge here. By trading Rondo, maybe you fall into the bottom five (in the NBA Draft), maybe you can draft Okafor next year," Simmons said. "Also they are going to lose him at the end of the season. They don't want to pay him max money. What I'm surprised by: nobody made a stupid offer for him. I was waiting for the Knicks to come in, maybe the Lakers. No. He was just sitting out there like on eBay, like some poster."

Rondo is a four-time NBA All-Star who won a championship with the Celtics in 2008. He's the last remaining piece from that championship team that banded together Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen in the first and most destructive off many Big Three lineups.

The Celtics have a slew of draft picks they received by trading Garnett and Pierce to the Brooklyn Nets, and now without Rondo, they have a chance at the cream of the crop in next year's lottery. They can also save money. Rose thinks the Mavericks will pay Rondo what he wants.

"You never get what you deserve, only what you have the power to negotiate," Jalen Rose said. "In Dallas he will get max money."