Six-Foot Turkey

Rajon Rondo can smell fear, of this I am certain. As a Nets fan it's tough to grapple with success. (We don't get to see it often.) It is especially tough to watch a man in green ascend to the upper-echelons of the League. For four years now the young Celtic has been making his case for greatness. My denial has been deep and my defense mechanisms numerous, but no longer can I contain the harrowing thought that the short kid with the beady-eyes might actually be the Harbinger of Doom.

I ignored his rookie year, writing him off as another punk guard prone to scowling and flopping. I scorned the little bastard for lucking into the only open spot on a historic starting roster, an unworthy fourth banana living in the shadow of three towers. I scoffed at his first attempts to take a leadership role on a team with Kevin Garnett. Mostly I've watched him and giggled at his curious resemblance to a baby dinosaur. The problem of course with baby dinosaurs is that they get big. And damn is Rondo growing.

The decision to write off the aging Celtics as a playoff threat this year was nearly unanimous. I myself was certain that the team would be about as healthy as a Bill Walton foot by the time the post season rolled around. The assumption was that the fossils would crumble and Ubuntu would be no more. Sure Garnett, Pierce, Allen and Wallace are not the players they were five years ago, but there's new blood in the pack. He's sharp and fast and mean and quite possibly telekinetic, like those velociraptors in Jurassic Park 3.

What is so impressive about Rondo is not just that he's good, but that he's so good. Let's face it, Rondo beat LeBron. I know, I know, it wasn't just Rondo. Doc's Green Machine beat the perennially uncoached LeBron and Sidekicks, but Rondo was the life force, the battery, the pacemaker keeping that incredible, experienced, occasionally senile organization running.

Rondo's trajectory thus far is nothing short of meteoric. Perhaps he's a product of his environment. Working out with all-stars everyday, apprenticing with some of the game's best minds, constantly curbing monolithic hubris to fit in, there could be no better situation for a promising young player to grow into a greatness. Talk about the Big Three all you like, but as of this past week, Rondo has stolen the heart of this team, or perhaps he's inherited it. Either way, he keeps it beating.

Watching Rondo traipse down the yellow brick road makes me hurt for the young players who aren't so lucky, who are picked apart by the flying monkeys and left for dead. It makes me wonder what will become of John Wall, a once-in-a-decade talent likely to be sentenced to serve on the 2011 Washington Wizards, a team so toxic it might prove barren to life for decades. More than anything Rondo's waltz toward the Emerald City puts a knot in my stomach. For long after this nightmare of the Big Three has fossilized, the monster they call Rage will be lurking right up the road in Boston. And he'll be hungry.