I love Rajon and I love that he is a pass first point guard. But some of these passing plays are simply not intelligent plays and I didn't see from some of the most unselfish players of our time (Nash, Kidd, etc). I'm sure other intelligent players besides Rondo have questionable tendencies as well and I think it is right to be curious about all of them.
Rondo takes better care of the ball than Nash or Kidd did. If they didn't have the same "questionable tendencies" that Rondo did, why did they turn the ball over more often? Inferior passing and ball-handling skills to Rondo's?
By the way, while this thread has gotten a little side-tracked, your original comment involved passing and the poor decisions that Rondo makes (that Kidd and Nash don't). Rondo's been a starter for 6 years, so I compared Rondo and Nash and Kidd in terms of assist/bad pass ratio over that time. If you just take a simple average (add their assist/bad pass ratios and divide by 6) Nash is 3.9/1, Kidd is 4.4/1 and Rondo is 5/1.
I didn't total the assists and bad passes over those 6 years for more accuracy but Rondo's lead is large enough that he'd still be ahead in such a case. Also, in those 6 years, Rondo had the best assist/bad pass ratio 4 times and tied for best the other two years. So for all the talk about fga and the like, there's no doubt that Rondo passes the ball more efficiently than either Nash or Kidd.
Your question to me was "if they didn't have the same questionable tendencies..." but if you look back to my post, I actually said that "I'm sure they DO have questionable tendencies". Why do they have to be the same? Every player has different tendencies. It would be a pretty boring game if they didn't. I'm just discussing Rondo's because I'm a celtics fan and watch a lot of celtics games.
So, to get to the essence of that particular tendency of Rondo's in question, there's a difference between turnovers by terrible decision and by not executing the pass.
In the NBA, most passing turnovers are committed by not executing the pass properly. Often times, windows to pass through for assisted baskets are very small and the pass has to be thrown very precisely. Trying to make a bounce pass to a back door cutting Avery Bradley on the baseline that goes past your defenders leg and under Avery's defender's arm while Avery is sprinting full speed that hits him right where his hands will be is very difficult. Often times the ball simply won't make it to that spot. Rondo is one of the BEST in the game (if not the best) at executing these passes. Sometimes, these turnovers will be characterized as "poor decision making" because it was a poor decision to make a pass into such a small window with only a certain % chance of being received. That's understandable and makes sense, but it was still a turnover because the pass was not thrown exactly where it needed to be. The majority of passing turnovers will fall into this category. Rondo is an amazingly precise passer which is why his assist/turnover ratio is so great and his efficiency is better than Nash or Kidd (I didn't look up and will take you at your word).
My gripe is his the other kind of turnover... the one where he just blatantly makes the wrong decision of pass vs. shoot. That is when he is has a perfectly open and makable shot (inside of 10 feet), but he turns the shot down to pass and that pass is turned over. That's the tendency of Rondo that makes me wonder what's going on. I think he's too intelligent of a player to think that's the basketball play that will result in the best outcome in those situations.