And some criticize towards a player they dont like just because
thats the nature of a place like this
somehow...
Who here seriously doesn't like Rondo?
We are Celtics fans, that's why we are here. 90% of us like Rondo, in fact 90% of us love Rondo.
We just get incredibly frustrated by the fact that he is such a "love / hate" player as a fan because his effort is either 150% or else it's 0%.
When Rondo plays like he's interested he is easilly a top 10 player in this league, and he's borderline unstoppable. When he plays like he's not interested he's as good as useless, and just about any decent PG would do a better job. The problem is that it seems like for every interested game, there are 2 or 3 uninterested ones.
That's the problem - that's why people get frustrated. You never know what you will get from him, you can't depend on him as a leader because you never know which Rondo is going to show up.
Sometimes I feel like I'd rather have somebody who is less talented but gives consistent effort on a nightly basis. Someone like KG or Avery Bradley could shoot 9-12 or 1-12 and you don't care either way, becuase you know that every single night their defense and effort are going to be there, and you know you can depend on that.
As for the "turns it on in the playoffs" argument, well that's all pretty useless if we don't MAKE it to the playoffs, isn't it? Up until Bradley's return we were out of the top 8 and on target to not make the playoffs, yet Rondo didn't suddenly turn it up and play with a sense of urgency. He kept playing 60% of the time like he wasn't interested.
Bradley comes back and now everyone is playing with more effort, and we win 4 games out of 5 - THAT is a leader's mentality.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/rondora01/on-off/2013/
Taking a look at the on/off stats its funny. We're better in every offensive category with Rondo on the court than off except rebounding, specifically offensive rebounding.
Yeah, and last time I checked those numbers for Rondo it revealed something very interesting. Our offense rating with Rondo on the court was barely above the team average, yet our offensive rating with him off the court was far below team average.
That suggests to me that it's not Rondo's offensive brilliance that helps us, it's the lack of a proper (and productive) backup PG that hurts us. If we traded Rondo for a good PG and a decent big I'd bet we woudl be at least as good (if not better) after the trade as we are now.