“My boy’s wicked smahhtt.”

I bet you thought I was quoting Good Will Hunting, right?  Well, uhh, I was, but I also could have been talking about Rajon Rondo (Via Mark Murphy’s piece in the Herald):

Rajon Rondo was the smartest kid in math class as a high school freshman, and the problem was that he knew it.

“He never used to bring his book to class or take any notes,” said Doug Bibby, Rondo’s freshman geometry teacher and, coincidentally, also his basketball coach for the three years he spent at Eastern High School in Louisville, Ky. “There were quite a few times when I gave out a problem for the class to work on, and he would just blurt out the answer. I would kind of get (ticked) because I thought he was just being an (expletive).”

Rondo often slept.

“I’d wake up, and I was able to ace my tests,” said Rondo. “(Bibby) never understood that. He was frustrated, because I’d be asleep in class. I’d be in the back going to sleep, wake up and ace the test. I’d been doing this since seventh grade.”

There are few people now who Bibby holds in such esteem, but he still sounds upset. Rondo, who admittedly has such a mind for numbers that he can do equations off the top of his head, enjoyed studying his older brother William’s math assignments. Rondo was secretly engrossed in subjects like trigonometry and finite math while his classmates were poring over simple algebra and geometry.

So while you thought Rondo was smart because he can run like the wind, has terrific court vision, and can jump like he lives on a trampoline, it’s really just that he knows the angles.  Well, that, and all those other things I just discussed. 

I bet you didn’t know Rondo was the next Will Hunting, did ya? 

Anyways, I would keep writing about Rondo’s intelligence, but I’ve got to go see about a girl.  While I do that, check out the rest of Murphy’s article.  It’s a good read.