Los Angeles Lakers: Which player will be the hardest to replace?

1. Rajon Rondo

Have you ever heard that song “i hate u, i love u” by gnash? That sounds reminds me of how Laker fans feel about Rajon Rondo.

“I hate you, I love you, I hate that I love you” 

Laker fans probably hated the way that Rajon Rondo would play during the regular season over the last two seasons. In fact, we know that fans were getting frustrated with Rondo. Just search the keywords “trade” and “Rondo” on Twitter from the months of January and February. You will see a lot of gems like this:

We can’t blame you for thinking that, Derrick. Rondo was pretty bad.

So Laker fans hated Rondo, then they loved Rondo for showing up in the NBA Playoffs and activating Playoff Rondo. And at the end of the day, we all hate that we love him because: a) how bad he was during the regular season and b) because he is a former Celtic.

Love him or hate him, he is going to be pretty dang hard to replace.

You simply cannot find playmakers and ballhandlers like Rajon Rondo. He is one of the best passers of this generation and while he is far past his prime he is still a much better passer than most in the league and his experience is impossible to match.

There are options out there, such as a trade for Derrick Rose, but that takes some sort of trade capital. Finding a secondary ballhandler to pick up the slack for LeBron James for as cheap as Rondo’s contract was is really hard.

That is why the Los Angeles Lakers didn’t trade him and what do you know, Rob Pelinka and co. are smarter than us all. That is why they get paid the big bucks.