rondo = overrated around here, underrated around the rest of the country, imo
will be interested how he performs now that he is "the man" on this team
I think that if you quantified how Rondo's rated around the league it would be well higher than how he's rated here.
Really? In their pre-season player rankings, ESPN ranked Rondo as the 27th best player in the league. However, I believe you have him as either a top 5 or top 10 player.
Obviously his knee injury affected his rankings. In his last full season ESPN ranked him 12th and he was 3rd team all-nba (13th in total votes), 11th in all-star voting, 2nd team all-defense. That's not that far from what I've said in the past (top 15 or so during the season, top 5 in the playoffs when healthy). People spend a lot of time ridiculing my opinion of Rondo but it's fairly mainstream.
Well, keep in mind that Westbrook, Rose, and Kobe were all ranked ahead of him and they all were dealing with injuries as well.
The league has changed a good bit since Rondo was ranked 12th. Harden, George, Irving, Lillard, Curry, etc. have all emerged. And with all the young players (Anthony Davis, Cousins, Drummond, etc.) continuing to rise, him being top 15, as you said, remains in question.
Sure, there's movement below him and players ahead of him drop. But from your ESPN rank, in Rondo's last 2 full seasons he was 17th and 12th. He's generally around that range in all-star voting, and he's been in that range for all-nba voting as well. I think you'd have a fairly tough time trying to demonstrate that he was viewed at a level lower than that outside of Boston prior to his injury. Again, it's relatively close to what I typically say about Rondo (although I don't have proof he's more highly rated in the playoffs, he's probably more known for stepping up his game in the postseason than anyone in the league).
Tim, I don't disagree with you that Rondo is in the 12-17 range of players when healthy. That 12-17 range is an average of him being better than that when he's trying and worse when he decides not to come play his hardest. But a lot of your comments have also led me to believe in the past that you find Rondo to be an indisputable top 5-10 NBA player at all times and at worst a top 2 PG in the league. I could be mistaken, but I feel like I read you comparing him favorably over Chris Paul a lot.
When New Orleans had a gun to their head to trade CP3, they wouldn't trade him for Rondo. They would trade him for Eric Gordon and they would trade for that other weird package that got overturned by Stern, but not for Rondo. A trade offer of Rondo for Steph Curry way before Curry became what he is now was also rejected by GS. I think that gives some perspective of where Rondo's value around the league lies.
I would say he's underrated outside of celtic nation. I think on celticsblog, its impossible to say because we have some posters who seriously underrate him, but also a few who IMO overrate him. If you are in one of those groups, you only read and remember the posts of the people in the opposite camp, so you assume that the majority of celticsblog thinks that way.