LOS ANGELES — On Tuesday, June 17, 2008, Rajon Rondo destroyed the Lakers.

Now he is a Laker.

The same guy who bedeviled Kobe Bryant and friends to clinch the 2008 NBA championship for the Celtics is now playing for their mortal June enemy. And, get this, his locker is adjacent to that of some guy named LeBron.

Who among you called all this 11 years ago?

Didn’t think so.

At 33 and in his 13th season, shouldn’t Rondo still be with the Celtics on the back nine of a career that will see his No. 9 take up residence in the Garden rafters? I asked him flat out what he’s doing with the Lakers.

“Boston didn’t call,” he replied, with no hesitation.

No, he doesn’t find it at all odd to be with the Lakers, the team against which he had 21 points, seven rebounds, eight assists, and six steals in Game 6 of the 2008 finals. And the team for which he hit a 20-foot fadeaway at the buzzer to beat the Celtics last month.

“Not many players have ever been with one franchise their whole entire career,” he said. “I’ve had a great journey. I don’t know where I’ll be next year, but, like I say, Boston hasn’t called since I got traded away.

“It’s a business. Things happen. Paul (Pierce) didn’t finish as a Celtic. If it was anybody, you’d think Paul Pierce would finish as a Celtic. I mean, he obviously did go back at the end, but even he got traded.

“Things happen. The ACL happened, and then they broke up the Big Three the following year. It was just time to go a different way. It’s just how the chips unfolded.”

Rondo suffered the injury in January of 2013. He wouldn’t play again until January of 2014. In the interim, the Celtics lost to New York in the first round of the playoffs and, soon after, Pierce and Kevin Garnett were traded away. Then Doc Rivers bolted for the Clippers, and Brad Stevens replaced him as coach.

“You play in this game long enough, you’ll see some crazy things,” Rondo said. “Nothing’s personal. But I couldn’t prevent the injury. You know, who’s to say, if I didn’t get injured, what that team would have been like or if we would have stayed together? Kevin got hurt in ’09. What happens to us that year if he doesn’t get hurt?”

Rondo played 30 games upon his return in 2013, posting fairly representative averages. But after 22 more games the following season, he was shipped to the Mavericks in a trade that returned, among others, Jae Crowder and a draft pick that became Guerschon Yabusele.

Then again, Rondo didn’t exactly leave kicking and screaming. He wasn’t taking to the role the Celtics wished for him on that rebuilding team, and he wasn’t unhappy to seek his fortunes elsewhere – though Dallas clearly wasn’t the place for him.

“I wanted to win,” he said. “I just wanted to win. Now, at this age, of course I wouldn’t mind mentoring young guys. But even now, I still want to win. I came here to win a championship. I’m a competitor. I never want to throw in the towel. At that particular time, I think I was coming off being a four-time All-Star, and then the ACL. I still felt like I had a lot left. I think I was 27.”

Some took it as a proverbial towel-tossing when Rondo sat away from the Lakers in the rich people’s sideline seats during the final moments of Wednesday’s loss to Denver. He explained afterward that he’d done it before and there was no meaning to it other than frustration with another loss.

Said Coach Luke Walton on Friday, “He was frustrated. We talked to him. There was no disrespect meant by what he did. The thing that people don’t get to see is that Rondo was in here (the Lakers’ practice facility) at 7:30 that morning getting shots up, knowing how teams were guarding him, working on the 3s off the dribble. He got to shootaround two and a half hours early, and he’s frustrated like a lot of us are that we haven’t been winning ballgames. So the discussion’s been had, but he’s somebody that continues to lead.”

And Rondo continues to be more of an example-type leader, though he said he got great guidance in his early years from Garnett, P.J. Brown, Keyon Dooling and others.

And those nine seasons with the Celtics still resonate with him.

“Absolutely,” Rondo said. “I mean, I grew up a lot in Boston. I came there at 20 and left at 27 or 28. The city’s done a lot for me. The fans, the energy, it was just an amazing place to be and play. People don’t really understand it until you’ve been through that situation before, let alone win a championship.

“You don’t appreciate something until you’re gone or until you don’t have it, but not once did I take it for granted. From the championship day on, it was more so ‘Thank you’ versus ‘Hey, I’m a Celtic fan.’ It was very sincere and understanding the magnitude of the game. All the intangibles that I brought to the game, the fans appreciated.

“Looking back at it, I have no regrets. I couldn’t control the injury, and that, I think, led to the breakup of the Big Three. So I had a hell of a run there, and those were probably the best days of my basketball career.”

But there are still more days to come.

“I feel like I’ve still got four or five more years, but I don’t know where I’ll be,” said Rondo, who’ll be a free agent this summer and waiting for a call.

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