Author Topic: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal  (Read 18170 times)

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Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #90 on: January 29, 2013, 11:59:12 PM »

Offline BballTim

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Rondo put up some incredible stats last season during the playoffs, but he definitely wasn't going up against the leagues' top point guards ... an and the fact he was playing 43 minutes per game definitely inflated his stats a bit .   Cut that to 36 minutes and those stats drop closer to regular season rondo.

  Rondo wasn't going up against the league's best point guards, he was going up against the league's best *defenses*, and that makes his play all the more impressive. Also, while you like to try and dismiss Rondo's play by claiming that his per36 minute stats drop to closer to his regular season stats, check out some of the other top performers in the league. Most of them will score the same or less per36 in the playoffs than they do during the season, almost all of them who score more per36 in the playoffs have less of an increase than Rondo.

The rest of this season will be fascinating.  There's a solid chance we play better without him.  I imagine Ray Allen is giddy right now... the tail end of this season could completely vindicate him and prove him right about Rajon.   

  Hard to see anything completely vindicating Ray. It's more likely that the rest of the season will vindicate Rondo, who wanted Bradley to start over Ray.

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #91 on: January 30, 2013, 12:09:45 AM »

Offline vinnie

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The hate for Rondo from some quarters on this blog goes beyond disgusting and reaches distasteful.  It is almost as if some are taking great glee in the fact that the guy tore his ACL.  :-[

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #92 on: January 30, 2013, 12:43:04 AM »

Offline CelticsFan9

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The hate for Rondo from some quarters on this blog goes beyond disgusting and reaches distasteful.  It is almost as if some are taking great glee in the fact that the guy tore his ACL.  :-[

I hear you vinnie.  I'm having a hard time understanding it, too.  Here's a TP to make you feel better.   :)

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #93 on: January 30, 2013, 12:47:20 AM »

Offline blink

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The hate for Rondo from some quarters on this blog goes beyond disgusting and reaches distasteful.  It is almost as if some are taking great glee in the fact that the guy tore his ACL.  :-[

I hear you vinnie.  I'm having a hard time understanding it, too.  Here's a TP to make you feel better.   :)

I will give you both one.  I agree too.  I wish we all could support our whole team.

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #94 on: January 30, 2013, 12:49:01 AM »

Offline CelticsFan9

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The hate for Rondo from some quarters on this blog goes beyond disgusting and reaches distasteful.  It is almost as if some are taking great glee in the fact that the guy tore his ACL.  :-[

I hear you vinnie.  I'm having a hard time understanding it, too.  Here's a TP to make you feel better.   :)

I will give you both one.  I agree too.  I wish we all could support our whole team.

Right back at ya, buddy!  TP!

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #95 on: January 30, 2013, 12:57:04 AM »

Offline Taklamar

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It'll be interesting to see how the offense changes and the efficiency of it.  For those who want to keep track, as of today the team has a Off Rating of 101.7 (28th) and Def Rating of 103.2 (7th) (basketball-reference.com).  It'll give us an answer...of which there'll be hundreds of interpretations, hah! Well, as long as no major trades happen either, haha.

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #96 on: January 30, 2013, 12:58:51 AM »

Offline Mazingerz

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And who would these Rondo bashers have?

Rondo has been great for the Celtics. Some of the stuff he, KG and PP have already done are legendary: 1. playing with a broken arm; 2. wheelchair game; 3. carrying the team on their backs;

I must admit some of rondo's games may have in the bizarre at times, but look rondo is what he is. His personality makes him unique.

Maybe if these Rondo bashers get what they want they will swear that they would rather have had Rondo on this team when the guy is traded.

Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.
Peavey Bass Player - relearning to play after 10 years sucks;

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #97 on: February 01, 2013, 12:36:13 PM »

Offline OsirusCeltics

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Whether Celtics are different or better without Rondo, the point is this team does not skip a beat when he is out

We have all seen Pierce looking old this season. If he just plays the point guard position the whole game, he'll have an advantage over anyone that guards him. Pierce whos not even a point guard can rack up triple doubles just like Rondo, So Rondo's stat line must not be that unique or impressive. Not saying Rondo sucks, but it does say something

It means this team is talented and has offensive weapons, which any point guard can take advantage of to be effective. Especially if a replacement point guard can score as well as facilitate offense, how would we be worse off without Rondo for the playoffs? And for all of the Rondo classic playoff moments, there is at least the same number of playoff games where he's no where to be found with no impact on the game, a turnover machine, or letting an average point guard score 30 on him. (Game 5 2012 EFC against the Heat surely rings a bell with him coming up small in the post-season). And many other examples where he played horribly

  I don't remember a ton about game 5 vs the Heat. From the box score it looks like Rondo had a weak shooting game. It also looks like he played all but 4 minutes of that game and the Celts were a -7 in those 4 minutes.

  But Rondo's played 92 playoff games in his career, let me know how many you can find where someone scored 30 on Rondo.

From Louis Williams to Jameer Nelson to Billups to Mo Williams. Too many scored or neared 30 on Rondo
Everyone has their bad playoff games, so I wont blame that on Rondo. But for all the accolades fans want to praise on Rondo's playoff moments, he has just as many horrible playoff games that cost the Celtics a chance to win. And if he is the leader of the team, he should be the leader in taking responsibility

His playoff games when he dominated are almost equal to playoff games when he was non-existent and had no impact on the game. I'm sure Celtics can find a guard (Or maybe already on the team) that can be more consistent than that

  Okay, so we now have a list of players who never scored 30 against Rondo in the playoffs (well, them and the rest of the point guards in the nba). Rondo doesn't have tons of playoff games where he disappears, maybe you're remembering them the way you're remembering all the games where he gave up 30 points to average point guards.

2009- Game 7 2nd round against the Magic. Played horribly and cost the Celtics the game. Wasn't pushing the offense causing turnovers. His play made Ainge blast him in the media
- Couple of games in the Bulls 1st round series where Rose outplayed him


2008- Game 5 EFC against the Pistons. People questioning if Sam Cassell should start instead

2010- Game 7 NBA Finals. NIce stat line, but no where to be found. Stopped driving the ball, passed when open. Lakers played 4 on 5 and made the Celtics easier to defend

2012- Game 6 against the Sixers, looked out of the game. DIdn't drive, dribbled the ball too much till the offense got stagnant, etc.

-Game 5 against the Heat. Caused turnovers, passed the ball too many times when he was wide open, lack of shooting caused Heat to play 5 on 4, horrible defense. Missed a chance to close out the Heat at home


Not sure if there's more, but these are the ones I member off head. And all of those games were pivitol important games. He's a good player, but his "godly playoff dominance" is overblown

Four "bad" playoff games in four years? Yeah, great point.

Four GLARINGLY BAD playoff games that came to mind. He obviously has many more. The important ones that either cost the Celtics the series, or got a team back in the series

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #98 on: February 01, 2013, 12:40:46 PM »

Offline Lightskinsmurf

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The hate for Rondo from some quarters on this blog goes beyond disgusting and reaches distasteful.  It is almost as if some are taking great glee in the fact that the guy tore his ACL.  :-[

I hear you vinnie.  I'm having a hard time understanding it, too.  Here's a TP to make you feel better.   :)

I will give you both one.  I agree too.  I wish we all could support our whole team.

Right back at ya, buddy!  TP!

Jesus, get a room.  ;)

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #99 on: February 01, 2013, 01:04:29 PM »

Offline Vermont Green

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The hate for Rondo from some quarters on this blog goes beyond disgusting and reaches distasteful.  It is almost as if some are taking great glee in the fact that the guy tore his ACL.  :-[
I have been accused of being a Rondo hater based on previous comments I have made that amount to saying things like "I don't think Rondo is MVP caliber", "I think Chris Paul is better" and "I don't think Rondo is a good shooter for a point gaurd".  These seem pretty obvious to me.

The thing (not the only thing) that prevents a really good player from becoming a great player is having a weakness.  Rondo has one, he can't shoot so the other team plays off him, giving him room to dribble too much and at times, try to accumulate too many assists (to his credit, I think he got over the assist issue).  His man sagging off makes it harder for Pierce and others to get shoots because the double team comes so quick.

It is also obvioius that team flow is different without Rondo.  There is more passing and more people getting assists and overall team assists are the same or better.  It is hard to imagine that Net-Net we are better without Rondo but I don't think it is that hard to see that we aren't that much worse with Bradley (who can't dribble with his left hand but plays great D and can shoot), Terry (who is not nearly the athlete that Rondo is but is a dangerous scorer) and Lee (who is no PG but holds his own) getting Rondo's minutes.  I guess Barbosa gets more minutes too which is a big drop off but he is only getting a few of Rondo's minutes.

So does this make me a hater?

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #100 on: February 01, 2013, 01:25:59 PM »

Offline CoachBo

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Here, if you try to look at Rondo's game in any context that falls short of outright hero worship, you get branded a hater.

I thought there were board rules against that, but I guess not.
Coined the CelticsBlog term, "Euromistake."

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #101 on: February 01, 2013, 01:36:28 PM »

Offline scaryjerry

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The team knows they won't make the playoffs if they don't play with intensity every night now..that's on them for not playing that way when rondo was healthy, but they knew it could be turned on and he would carry them in the playoffs..now there pride is on the line and they're playing like it...it is so completely fraudulent to think they're better without their best player...certain players might not have fit with him..but Avery and kg fit like a glove with rondo and this pp and Lee ball handling crap will only work so long.

Nevertheless the op thinks carmelo is better than LeBron.. and the people flaming rondo like coachbo have been doing so all along and can't ever admit they were wrong and love this opportunity to somehow prove themselves

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #102 on: February 01, 2013, 01:41:18 PM »

Offline scaryjerry

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Rondo put up some incredible stats last season during the playoffs, but he definitely wasn't going up against the leagues' top point guards ... an and the fact he was playing 43 minutes per game definitely inflated his stats a bit .   Cut that to 36 minutes and those stats drop closer to regular season rondo.

  Rondo wasn't going up against the league's best point guards, he was going up against the league's best *defenses*, and that makes his play all the more impressive. Also, while you like to try and dismiss Rondo's play by claiming that his per36 minute stats drop to closer to his regular season stats, check out some of the other top performers in the league. Most of them will score the same or less per36 in the playoffs than they do during the season, almost all of them who score more per36 in the playoffs have less of an increase than Rondo.

The rest of this season will be fascinating.  There's a solid chance we play better without him.  I imagine Ray Allen is giddy right now... the tail end of this season could completely vindicate him and prove him right about Rajon.   

  Hard to see anything completely vindicating Ray. It's more likely that the rest of the season will vindicate Rondo, who wanted Bradley to start over Ray.

Rondo was guarded and has been in the playoffs by the opposing teams best perimeter player...not there point guard.

Ray sounded asinine...he never played with a better point guard and it reflected on his shooting percentages...rondo and Ray were good together, period...unfortunately other things got in the way

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #103 on: February 01, 2013, 01:51:33 PM »

Offline LarBrd33

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The rest of this season will be fascinating.  There's a solid chance we play better without him.  I imagine Ray Allen is giddy right now... the tail end of this season could completely vindicate him and prove him right about Rajon.   

I'd hope Ray would have enough tact to not be "giddy" over a season ending injury to a past teammate.

It sure seems like that's the mentality around here though.

Well said.

I cannot seem to fathom why some would be happy we just lost our most talented player.  It's disturbing.
I still think our two most talented players are Pierce and KG.  Hence why the rest of this season will be so fascinating.  I'm not happy we lost Rondo.  I love Rondo.  Plus, Rondo actually had a bit of trade value before the injury and now we're likely going to be stuck in mediocrity for years.

I do think Rondo is supremely overrated on this forum, though.  And I do think Ray bailed on this team at least in part, because he didn't feel Rondo's skill set warranted his growing role.  There's a lot of smoke surrounding this concept that the team doesn't necessarily enjoy the Rondo-centric offense... so I'm fascinated to see how they react without him.  That's not to say I'd prefer this scenario to one with a healthy Rondo on board.

One of my biggest complaints about this season is that the roster was completely dysfunctional.  I had preferred a pipedream scenario where we used a collection of some undersized SG's,  underwhelming PF's, and draft picks to land a big man who could fix the roster logic.  But in a way, Rondo's injury solves many of the issues this Roster had.  There's no longer 4 undersized shooting guards splitting 50 minutes.  Rondo's injury pushes the PG-sized Bradley to PG... it pushes our biggest guard, Lee, into a permanent starting role.  It ensures that Terry remains as a 6th man where he belongs.  And it makes it so that one of our most talented players, Barbosa, doesn't unfairly get stuck with random DNP's due to guard-clog (these guys now have an additional 43 minutes of playing time that they can all gobble up).  It frees up our 4th best player, Jeff Green, to actually use his talents instead of trying to conform into something he's not.  It will give us the option of actually trying to post-up once in a while without the concern of taking the ball out of Rondo's hands, clogging up the middle for a Rondo drive... or watching as Rondo's defenders slack off him and double the dude trying to post up.   What that means is... Rondo's injury will go a long way to defining roles.  This team might actually stand a chance of maximizing their talents.  Our best two defensive guards will be starting with very little chance of them getting stuck with awkward size mismatches (like Bradley being stuck guarding Joe JOhnson or something).    All of these things weren't possible when your 3rd best player happens to be an all-star whose best attribute is "passing" and worst attribute is "shooting".   We loaded up on scorers (not shooters) in the offseason... now we get to actually USE those scorers as they should be used.

Would I prefer trading all the underperformers for something like Josh Smith, Marcin Gortat, Demarcus Cousins, Pau Gasol, etc... and rolling through the rest of the season with a Rondo-lead offense now featuring a influx of legit starting big man talent?.... Absolutely.  But this might be interesting too.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 01:59:51 PM by LarBrd33 »

Re: Rondo is being put too high on a pedestal
« Reply #104 on: February 01, 2013, 02:16:52 PM »

Offline LarBrd33

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Rondo put up some incredible stats last season during the playoffs, but he definitely wasn't going up against the leagues' top point guards ... an and the fact he was playing 43 minutes per game definitely inflated his stats a bit .   Cut that to 36 minutes and those stats drop closer to regular season rondo.

The rest of this season will be fascinating.  There's a solid chance we play better without him.  I imagine Ray Allen is giddy right now... the tail end of this season could completely vindicate him and prove him right about Rajon.   

I've argued for a while that Boston's offense was built around rondos' weaknesses.  The guy couldn't shoot so defenders slacked off him... Thus we needed guys like bass and kg to linger around the mid range so they could open up the paint for rondo drives.  If you didn't have jump shooting big men, rondo wouldn't be able to drive, because those jump shooting big men wouldn't be pulling defenders out of the paint.  Also, just in general yoU needed to surround rondo with shooters.   

Let's just say this has the potential to be very interesting.  We have guys who can generate offense.  We could go out and get a post up player or allow kg to pound down low more often...  We don't need to start Bass.  We don't need to make up for the fact our point guard is a semi liability off the ball...   

That combined with the fact it clears up our guard clog (no more dnps for Barbosa), moves the 6'2 180 pound Bradley to PG, ensures our two best defensive guards are starting and moves terry to the 6th man role he belongs in... It could be very interesting

I can't think of a team who has ever won a title due to having a super good passer.  At least with Nash it was more plausible, because off the ball he doubled as arguably the best shooter in the world

Rondo looked pretty good when we had Shaq
I think that's different.  I think the problem with posting up players in a Rondo-lead offense is that it's pretty well known Rondo is useless off the ball.  If Rondo dumped it into a post-up player of the Sully caliber... isn't there a danger of Rondo's man slacking off him and doubling Sully?   Frankly, Rondo off the ball was a liability.  It's different than if you had someone like a Jose Calderon or Steve Nash playing point... someone who could knock down an open shot.  If you slack off Calderon and try to double Sully... Sully can just kick it back to Calderon for a good percentage shot.  There's no way a Rondo will ever get to a point in his career where that's a realistic option.  Teams would be more than willing to live and die with Rondo jumpers.  I also think that Rondo's shooting weakness means that he's most effective when he has the option of driving to the bucket (where he's very effective), commanding attention, and kicking out to shooters.   Rondo is quick and a solid finisher... so it's pretty necessary to have the option of him driving.  That's the main reason we traded for Brandon Bass... we wanted a big man who was more consistent knocking down jumpers than Glen Davis.  We had tried to get Davis to pick up that skill, but Davis was nowhere near as consistent as Bass was.  Having both KG and Bass spreading the floor effectively meant that the completely ball-dominating Rondo could run wherever he wanted on the court and theoretically have 4 different shooters to kick the ball out to.  If nobody came at Rondo, he'd just drive to the bucket for a layup... and since the other team's shotblockers where theoretically being pulled out of the lane to cover the shooting big men, it eased up on the possibility of Rondo getting swallowed up by a blocked shot.   ALl of this made for a pretty predictable offense and necessitated that Rondo had the ball in his hands pretty much at all times.  You couldn't, for instance, give to the ball to Courtney Lee, Terry or Green and have them create their own shot.  I mean, you COULD try that... but as long as Rondo was out there, there's the understanding that you have a weak shooter who you can slack off and go after the guy trying to create a shot.  It makes it difficult for the dude trying to create.  If someone like Ray Allen is known for "spreading the floor"... Rondo is the opposite. 

With Shaq it's a little different mainly because Shaq, even in his advanced age, could plow through literally anyone in the NBA and get in position an inch from the basket.  The dude was like 7'2 and 360 pounds.  He had no trouble getting in scoring position.  That made for a lot of lobs into Shaq (already in position) for an easy look.  Having Shaq is different than having someone like KG.  KG would need to put in a lot of work to get into scoring position on the post.  That would take some time.   Shaq could just steamroll people with his size.  That's different than if we wanted to dump the ball into Sully and give him a possession to create a shot on the post.  And if a Sully (or whoever we are posting up) is taking time getting in possession, that allows time for Rondo's man to slack off and double. 

Check out Shaq's highlights as a Celtic: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr8fv0lcjtg

Would you call that "posting up"... or was it just Shaq using his size to get to the basket and Rondo passing it to him?  I think that's different than if you had someone like Al Jefferson or something.  Big Al possessions take time, footwork... and room to operate. 
« Last Edit: February 01, 2013, 02:23:44 PM by LarBrd33 »