Rajon Rondo’s crazy pre-game routine
Celtic Jason Terry gave a behind-the-scenes look at some teammates in an interview with ESPN, spilling on everything from nicknames to best dancer. For the record, it’s Courtney Lee who can rock “the old school” and “new-school dances.”
But as for the weirdest part of Terry’s dish, it might just be teammate Rajon Rondo‘s insane pre-game routine:
“Rajon Rondo, for sure. His routine is long-winded and it lasts all the way through tip-off. It starts in the back hallway. He runs down a corridor and he throws the ball to our team chaplain, who throws it back. Then [Rondo] runs out into a circle, high-fives the whole team and then he does the layup lines for five minutes.
“Then he will stand under the goal and Paul Pierce will shoot every ball on the rack from half court. Rondo will catch four balls at one time and then after that, it’s just amazing — one pass off the backboard to KG, one bounce pass to Paul Pierce and then he throws it all the way up to the scoreboard and Jeff Green finishes with an alley-oop.
“It’s every game, even road games. I have no idea how he started it; I’m new to the team. I was still going through layup lines and I almost got hit with one of those balls in the head. I wasn’t aware that’s what they were doing. It threw me off.
“Before I came here, I had a ritual, and that was I’d throw the ball and make sure I hit the JumboTron. Some of them were way, way up to the ceiling, and I wanted to hit it every time. The funniest story is one time I hit the JumboTron, the ball came back and hit the ref in the head. I walked off so quick. It was Dick Bavetta.”
It seems pretty intense, but hey, you can’t knock it if it works.
