A pair of former Chicago Bulls teammates from the 2016-17 season, Rajon Rondo and Jimmy Butler, will be facing each other in the NBA Finals this year.
A very weird mix of guards/wings commanded the Chicago Bulls starting five back during the 2016-17 season. The starting trio at the two guard spots and on the wing for the Bulls during that volatile 2016-17 campaign under the direction of former head coach Fred Hoiberg (now with the Nebraska Cornhuskers) were point guard Rajon Rondo, shooting guard Dwyane Wade, and small forward Jimmy Butler.
While that trio in the Bulls starting five certainly had a lot of big names, it didn’t work so well in terms of the impact it had for the team in the win column. The Bulls were bounced in the first round of the playoffs that year, coming in as an eight-seed. And none of those players remained with the Bulls following the 2016-17 season.
Rondo continued to be a career journeyman heading into the 2017 offseason, and Wade wound up back with Pat Riley and the Miami Heat. The biggest move following that disappointing 2016-17 campaign for the Bulls was shipping off Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves for a return that would net them shooting guard Zach LaVine, point guard Kris Dunn, and power forward Lauri Markkanen.
Rondo said Jimmy Butler was “one of my favorite teammates” from their Chicago days.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) September 29, 2020
Move the clock forward to this current season, entering the NBA Finals, two of these aforementioned former Bulls teammates are now taking each other on. Rondo is one of the more important pieces of the backcourt rotation for the Lakers, who are the top seed coming out of the Western Conference.
Rondo and the Lakers took down the three-seed Denver Nuggets in a quick five-game series in the Western Conference Finals.
Meanwhile, Butler is the veteran star piece (alongside rising star big man Bam Adebayo) that pushed the five-seed Heat to new heights and got to the first NBA Finals series of his career. Butler and the Heat took down the three-seed Boston Celtics in a six-game series in the Eastern Conference Finals.
But not all will be hostile between Rondo and Butler in the NBA Finals it seems. In pre-NBA Finals press conferences, Rondo mentioned how Butler was one of his “favorite teammates” from their days with the Bulls. It will be interesting to see how that bond might play out in the NBA Finals this year.
Butler is averaging more than 20 points per game in this playoff run with the Heat so far. Rondo isn’t putting up that much scoring, but he is making an impact back in the rotation with the Lakers. Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Heat and Lakers tips off at 8 p.m. CT on Sep. 30 in the bubble at Disney World in Orlando, FL.