Rajon Rondo sat next to a plate of fruit before last night’s 104-99 win over the Indiana Pacers. He didn’t eat it. Behind him in the Celtics [team stats] locker room a replay of a game between the Pacers and Memphis Grizzlies was running. He didn’t watch it. Instead, Rondo sat surrounded by reporters, answering questions he didn’t seem to want to answer about a situation he didn’t seem to want to acknowledge - the arrival of his newest teammate, 32-year-old point guard Stephon Marbury, a man known for scoring, passing and being in love with himself. Rondo, a kid of 24 who sees himself as chief mixologist of whatever Doc Rivers wants concocted, has just begun to emerge as one of the NBA’s top point guards. He is, as he sees it, in charge of the defending NBA champions. And now here comes Marbury, a man who has averaged 19.7 points, 7.8 assists and, most importantly, 37 minutes a game during his 12-year career. He has never sat behind anybody, and yet that is exactly what he has been brought in to do. He is here to play, but more often, to watch. To sit behind Rondo and help out when he can. Or is he? That, really, is what some people were wondering, even more so after Marbury’s 13-minute, eight-point debut in the C’s victory. Really, that was the question being asked. Yet however it was asked, and it was asked in several ways, Rondo kept coming back to Sam Cassell. “The same thing happened with Sam coming in last year,” Rondo said in a clear case of comparing apples to crab apples. “People thought I’d take it the wrong way. I didn’t. He’s a veteran. He’s an established scorer. He can only help.” Asked how he thought Marbury would fit into the present rotation, Rondo looked distant for a moment before saying, “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’ t know.” Then Rondo again spoke of the 38-year-old Cassell as if there was some legitimate comparison between him and a guy known as “Starbury,” a guy who not only has his own sneaker but also had a cheesecake named after him at Junior’s, a well-known Coney Island restaurant, when he was still in high school. Guys like that aren’t inclined to sit behind anybody, but that is the plan. And Rondo, for one, is sticking to it. So Stephon Marbury, in Rondo’s mind, is Sam Cassell lite. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it. “I think it’s the same situation but I probably am more established,” Rondo said of the difference between that situation last year and this one. “I’m more confident - and I’m playing a little better.” As point guard of the NBA champions Rondo should be confident. That he’s playing even better this year has been evident for quite some time. His self-confidence is neither misplaced nor ill-founded, a point he drove home last night with a career-high 17 assists. Still, who looks forward to having a player who has averaged 20 points or more seven times and has finished in the top 10 in assists nine times peeking over his shoulder? Logically, the answer is nobody. But Rajon Rondo [stats] wasn’t going there. Instead he acknowledged Marbury’s skills and never once mentioned Marbury’s cousin, Sebastian Telfair [stats], who cost Rondo a scholarship to his hometown college, Louisville, because Rick Pitino kept waiting to see if Telfair was going directly to the NBA or coming his way. And Telfair was also the guy Rondo had to compete with for time when he first arrived in Boston. Telfair is long gone, but now his cousin is here. Rondo, however, didn’t go there. The closest he came to the flame was when someone asked if he thought Marbury would buy into his new role as a backup. “Everybody (here) has a role,” Rondo said. “We have scorers. We have defenders. Does everybody know his role?” Certainly Rajon Rondo does. Point guard, NBA champions. --

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