Rondo in Baron Davis’ new game thanks to “personality”

Baron Davis of the New York Knicks recently teamed up with a former EA Sports employee to form 5 Balloons Interactive, a mobile gaming company that will design games and apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Their first title is “Getting Buckets“, a basketball themed game that features only five characters, one of which is former Kentucky player Rajon Rondo.

The other players looked deformed and stylized, but for some reason, Rondo looks pretty normal.

The game’s cast is far from an extensive superstar roster, instead including the likes of Baron Davis, Steve Nash, Rajon Rondo, Brandon Jennings and WNBA alum Candace Parker. Rondo is the most influential player on the list in the current NBA state of affairs, but Baron Davis says the Celtic wasn’t included in the game only because of his superstar status.

Referencing the characteristics looked for in the game’s characters, Davis had the following to say.

“We wanted to capture guys who had style and personality on the court, so that was how we initiated our search. We wanted guys who are socially active and have that personality that we want to bring to life in this game. I think what’s cool about this is, a lot of companies will run to the “superstar” players to get it done, but that’s not the way we did it. We went with guys who are more into their social distribution pipeline and, more importantly, players with personality.”

Although Davis seems confident in Rondo’s “social distribution pipeline”, Rondo doesn’t seem to interact with fans all that regularly. As recently as this week, one of his 737,000 Twitter followers lamented the lack of an update, and pleaded “I miss you!! Come back and talk to us on twitter Pleeeease!” Rondo undoubtedly has loads of personality and a clear sense of style on the court, but saying he is social is probably an exaggeration. That said, he did appear on an episode of The Jimmy Kimmel Show fairly recently, plug the new game on Twitter when it launched, and seems to be reentering the graces of Kentucky fans slowly but surely.

Rondo has always been an enigma, but now he’s an enigma appearing in yet another video game. Unfortunately for those seeking to play as Rondo in Getting Buckets, the app is only available through iTunes for Apple products at a price of $.99, including another $1.99 to play as Rondo or any character other than Baron Davis.