Though Danny Ainge denied a rumored swap of Boston’s Rajon Rondo and Brian Scalabrine for Memphis’ Rudy Gay and Mike Conley during the Celtics GM’s Wednesday morning appearance on WEEI , Ainge hardly gave Rondo a vote of confidence, telling Dennis & Callahan, “he’s got to grow up in some cases.”  Under what circumstances would it be to Boston’s advantage to publicly reveal their young PG was fined for tardiness during the postseason?  Boston Sports Media‘s Bruce Allen concludes “Rondo just might not be long for Boston,” even if “he is easily the most entertaining Celtic to watch.” From Metro.us :

If we’ve learned anything during Danny Ainge’s tenure with the Celtics, it is that he is not afraid to make bold moves, and that he develops a plan, and he carries it out. During his early years with the club, he talked constantly about acquiring assets and young talent with the aim of then trading it for veteran stars. He turned that thinking into Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen.

He’s mentioned since then that he purposely “stacked” the contracts of Allen, Pierce and Garnett to expire in in consecutive years so that the team would have the ability to replace their stars as they aged. He may have had a specific plan in place for the coming years. Did Rondo’s emergence perhaps threaten to throw a wrench into those plans? If the Celtics need to give Rondo a max contract, will that prevent them from making some other move? Owner Wyc Grousbeck was also on WEEI recently and gushed about the possibility of a scenario next summer in which the Celtics would be able to offer a maximum contract to a free agent. The scenario would seem to be contingent on Rondo not getting that max money, or even close to it. Who knew that when we were marveling at Rondo’s play against the Bulls, we were perhaps watching him play his way right out of town?

So perhaps Ainge is trying to move Rondo for as much as he can so that the Celtics will still be in position to do whatever he has in mind to do next summer? That’s about the only thing I can think of, though it doesn’t make any sense for Ainge to publicly point out the flaws in Rondo’s game if he is truly trying to trade him.