There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes and the phenomenon of fans getting excited over players’ physiques when there’s no basketball being played. This phenomenon is known as #MuscleWatch, and Rajon Rondo is its latest beneficiary (or victim, depending on how you look at it).
On Tuesday, the Lakers shared a video of Rondo getting a workout in at the UCLA Health Training Center in El Segundo, and in that video, the 34-year-old point guard looks bigger and stronger than he ever has.
Rondo’s always been in pretty good shape, so I did some digging to see if this was just a result of people not seeing him without a shirt in a while — it’s not. Take a look at this video of Rondo working out with NBA trainer Chris Johnson. He’s big, for sure, but not as big as he is in the above video.
Dave McMenamin of ESPN talked about Rondo during a recent appearance on ESPN LA 710’s “Mason & Ireland,” and reported that he’s heard that Rondo looks like he found the long-searched-for Fountain of Youth:
“If we want to keep going with this hype machine, I had a source tell me that, within the last week — seeing Rajon Rondo — quote, unquote, “He looks like he’s 21 years old again. So, there is some positive momentum to this conversation.”
Looking good doesn’t always translate to playing well, as evidenced by the way Rondo’s played for most of this season, but Rondo’s shown that he can take his game to another level in the postseason.
Now, does that mean he’s going to play at the level he played at when he was an All-Star back in 2013? No – he might not even look like the player that gave Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers a hard time in 2018. One thing’s for certain, though: as long as there is a break in basketball, there will always be lofty expectations projected onto a player when games resume, and Rondo is the one Lakers fans will be on the lookout out for in Orlando.
No pressure, Rajon.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow this author on Twitter at @RadRivas.