Rondo Clears Up Trampoline-Gate Rumors

Rumors about Rajon Rondo began bouncing off the wall upon being spotted at a trampoline park prior to news of his hand injury.

The Boston Celtics captain underwent surgery for a left metacarpal fracture on Friday. On Monday he cleared up trampoline-gate during Media Day, explaining he suffered the injury in his shower.

“Usually how certain falls happen, you slip,” Rondo said with his left arm in a sling. “I slipped and tried to catch my hand. It wasn’t like a banana slip. Actually, I almost caught myself, landed on my knuckle in the windowsill in my home.”

Rondo offered a timeline of events, beginning last Tuesday with his first trip of the week to a trampoline park in Dedham, Mass. on Tuesday.

“I did jump,” he said. “I learned some new tricks with my daughter. We had a lot of fun.”

He returned to another trampoline park on Thursday in Billerica, Mass.

“I didn’t jump that day,” he said. “I just let my kids play, run off some steam. It was a school night so I wanted to go about 45 minutes. People were really nice there, they let me in for free, so that was good. That night I went home and that’s when the incident happened. So it didn’t happen at all at the trampoline place.”

Following his fall, Rondo tried to grab items in his home. He waited about half an hour to call Celtics athletic trainer Ed Lacerte and made plans to meet with team physician Brian McKeon the following morning at New England Baptist Hospital. Within a matter of hours, x-rays had revealed a fracture and Rondo was undergoing surgery.

The team estimates the timetable for his return at six to eight weeks. Rondo hopes to be faster than that given the injury is not on his dominant hand.

“We’ll be very cautious with him,” said Celtics President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge. “He’ll want to be back sooner than he’ll probably be playing back, but people I think underestimate how much you use your left hand, not just dribbling and passing. He uses it a lot, defensively, and we want to be careful and make sure there’s nothing long term there.”

Ainge visited with Rondo in his home and said the Celtics do not doubt what the point guard has told them. This summer, Ainge himself slipped coming out of the shower this summer, hit his head and had to go to the emergency room.

“I guess it’s not so shocking to me that that’s possible,” Ainge said. “In talking to the medical staff and so forth, it’s an injury that happens when you land. It’s not like a hitting injury or a hitting-a-wall injury, or something like that.”

Rondo will start this season sidelined during training camp, just as he did last year with an ACL injury. He is positive and optimistic about a quick return.

“For me to go through with what I went through with my ACL,” he said, “this is nothing.”