In 567 games (regular season and playoffs), Rajon Rondo has totaled 6,587 points, 4,788 assists, 2,710 rebounds, 1,094 steals, 27 triple-doubles, an NBA title, another finals appearance and four All-Star Game selections. 

And in just five games, a healthy portion of the fan base of the Celtics (and a growing collection in the media) has come to the conclusion that the 2012-13 team is a better one without Rajon Rondo.

Yup, wins over the Heat (impressive) and the 17-33 Kings, 14-35 Magic, a Clippers team without Chris Paul and on Wednesday night a comeback victory over the perpetually lottery-humping Raptors is all the evidence required. 

Who needs Rondo, really? He's selfish, he's a punk, his teammates hate him, he's not a leader, certainly not a franchise player and now there's this -- he doesn't make his teammates better. 

Who knew about all this? Until Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals last year Rondo was the very best player in the postseason. Here's just a couple of games he submitted during that run: 

17-14-12 in Game 2 over the Hawks;

20 points (8-of-11 shooting), 16 assists and one turnover in Game 3 against the Hawks;

13-12-17, four steals in Game 1 over the 76ers;

18-10-10 in the Game 7 win over the 76ers;

44-8-10 in 53 minutes in the Game 2 overtime loss to the Heat, in the best performance by a Celtics player not named Larry Bird I've ever seen;

and in Game 7 vs. the Heat, 22-10-14, his fourth triple-double of that postseason.

Are those five games more or less meaningful than the last five games of the current regular season? It seems to me that Rondo was able to make teammates better last June -- take a look at the box score of any of those playoff games and you'll quickly be reminded of a truly horrific bench -- and in years before. Did he just lose that ability overnight, and how did he manage to lose it while still being able to lead the NBA in assists?

The Celtics are playing well right now, no way around that. They were actually starting to play better defensively before Rondo blew out his knee and had put together a six-game winning streak just a month ago, but there is no question that Doc Rivers, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce view all this as a challenge, the ultimate opportunity to play the "no one believes in us" card, and it's working. 

But just wait. It's all swell for now -- we are smack in the middle of the montage part of this movie -- but this team is going to run into the reality of not having its best player. It might not be Thursday night against the Lakers, or even in the next couple of weeks, but it's going to happen. There's a five-game West Coast trip at the end of the month followed by a brutal March that include games vs. the Warriors, at Indy, vs. the Hawks, at Oklahoma City, vs. the Knicks, at Memphis, vs. the Hawks and at the Knicks.

My guess? At the end of March the talk no longer will be about how much better this team is without Rondo, but rather the failure of Danny Ainge to not recognize the situation and do his best to blow up the team when it was perceived he had the opportunity to do so. And the same people who floated the idea that this team didn't need Rondo will be at the front of the line readying to bash Ainge. 

Tattoo this, please, behind your eyelids: Basketball teams do not get better without their best players. It does not happen. This isn't going to be the 2001 Patriots all over again, OK? Rajon Rondo isn't Drew Bledsoe, and Courtney Lee isn't Tom Brady. Can they win five a row, or 11 out of 14? Sure. But they eventually return to what they are, and what they are without Rondo is the maybe the eighth-best team in the Eastern Conference. They'll play hard, they will not quit, but if they make the playoffs (and I think they will) they'll lose in the first round to the Heat, Pacers or Bulls (it says here the Knicks will be the fourth seed).  

All the other stuff, the criticisms of Rondo have validity -- there are maturity issues that I suspect will never go away, he has had some shaky moments with teammates, he'll never be Mark Price as a shooter, he's never be Dennis Johnson as a defender -- and there is something to the idea that the last five games have shown that Rondo a) holds the ball too long during possessions and b) needs to focus more on his on-ball defensive effort. Doc Rivers has long praised Rondo's basketball IQ, we'll see if he's smart and secure enough to acknowledge this and make the proper adjustments next season.

But what's struck me most about the reaction to this five-game run is the absolute glee of the professional Rondo-haters, this has been sports pornography for them, some kind of validation that doesn't really exist. There's been more celebration directed toward winning without Rondo as opposed to the actual winning. And it continues to lead me to this question: If Rondo looked like John Stockton or Mark Price and acted the way he does, would the word "punk" be used so liberally? No chance. He's not a saint by the loosest definition, but I'll bet you all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that if he were a white point guard he'd be called "gutsy" and "scrappy" a lot more than he is now. Rondo gives off the impression that he doesn't care if you like him or not (and who knows if that's true) and that drives some people bonkers. 

Rondo has his flaws, and he's been around long enough that it's fair to assume they are not going away, and they are flaws that will prevent him from ever being the best point guard in basketball. But this is a player in his absolute prime who has carried the Celtics to a Game 7 of the NBA finals and a Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals over the last three years. Was anyone asking if life would be better without Rondo last June?

Enjoy this run while it lasts, because without Rajon Rondo it's going to come to an end. And I suspect it'll take one five-game losing streak for most to jump back on the Rondo bandwagon.