Rajon Rondo has rejoined the Lakers after successful surgery on broken hand

Rajon Rondo was diagnosed with a broken hand and received surgery, and is set to return to the court in about a month. He apparently wants nothing to do with that timetable. He also isn’t letting his injury get in the way of being a vocal leader for this team.

And while he can’t play yet, Rondo has arrived in Miami to support his teammates for the Lakers’ game against the Heat and the rest of their road trip, and he’s already doing Rondo things again.

Lakers head coach Luke Walton said Rondo has been desperately working to get back much sooner, and he told Broderick Turner of the L.A. Times that Rondo has been fight to rejoin the Lakers on the road basically since his surgery ended:

When Lakers coach Luke Walton spoke with Rondo on Friday, both before the team left Los Angeles and after the team landed here, the veteran point guard talked about how the pain was subsiding in his surgically repaired right hand and that he hoped to rejoin the team before the trip is over.

“He was feeling some pain and then I talked to him again last night and he said he was already starting to feel much better, as far as just the pain level is concerned,” Walton said. “He’s dying to get out here and be with the guys. He’s meeting with some doctors in L.A., doing some things right now and he possibly will meet us on this trip.”

As much as fans might have been frustrated by Walton’s using Rondo late in games over Lonzo Ball, the Lakers very obviously missed Rondo’s presence in Saturday’s blowout loss to the Orlando Magic. This might not have been a Rondo-specific issue, though.

You hear it all the time; “Point guards are like an extension of the coach on the court.” Clichés are clichés but this one really does mean something. The position is absolutely vital to the way teams run. Thus far, the Lakers have not looked good when they’ve gone with point guard-less lineups. They lack rhythm and discipline, and what half-court sets they do run typically devolve into guys standing around the perimeter waiting for each player’s turn to iso.

It simply doesn’t make sense to spend any time whatsoever with neither a point guard or LeBron James on the court, especially when Rondo is healthy. Those stretches have been unmitigated disasters for the most part.

For Rondo specifically, the top priority is his health. It’s really cool that he is working so hard and wants so badly to be back with the team, but that shouldn’t come at risk of further injury. If he can come back and be healthy, awesome. The Lakers need him. But if that puts him at any further risk, it’s not worth it. Still, it’s going to help to have him back verbally abusing motivating Lonzo from the sidelines.