They are actually inching towards .500 which is good for Rondo... and I guess bad for our hopes of landing Cousins.
I never doubted Rondo's ability to rack up stats on a system that catered to him. As long as he's playing big minutes and controlling the ball at all times, he can be a statistical beast.
If you intend to run a modern "pace-and-space" offense built around ball movement and shooting, Rondo will prove to be a liability. It was clear that we were better without him 3 years in a row and instead of seeing him successfully adapt to playing Brad's system, Boston basically just let Rondo keep doing Rondo things during his final days... to the detriment of the team and the system they were trying to implement. Then he ends up in Dallas... which was at the time the shining example of a "pace and space" offense... and Rondo was predictably a disaster.
But as long as you give him the keys and let him run the show, he'll get you lots of assists. His 35% three point shooting deserves credit. Shooting 50% from the line and his team being 6 games under .500 is a problem, but they are actually 1.5 games out of the playoffs.
I agree that he needs particular players around him that cater to his passing ability (shooters), but that's why he was so good with the big 3. But I disagree that he 'needs' the ball in the manner you describe it. Now if you want to say he needs to control the offense (and have the right kind of shooters around him), then that's more the way I think he should be viewed.
We were a space and shoot team when we won the 'ship, all the way till the
day KG and Pierce were sent out.
For a few years there we were the number one jump shooting team in the NBA and it was Rondo's penetration+kicks, Rondo swinging of the ball and general control of the offense that made us so good.
Rondo caught fire vs the Heat, but we had Bass and KG who were literally the two best jumpshooters in the league from 10-15 feet, with Pierce and Ray who were excellent 3 point shooters.
I went down and back for the last 6 games of the 2012 Heat playoff series, and remember how much our space and swinging was affecting the Heat's number 1 ranked defense.
Rondo shooting three's at 40% was helpful too, but his control of the offense, combined with KG drinking from the Gatorade fountain of youth, was the main reason we even came close- at least in terms of things that our team could personally control. (eg it helped that Bosh was out too).
He's shooting 35% from three this season too, on 2 attempts per game, so he's obviously worked on his shooting from deep.
He'll always be a flawed player, but he's still arguably the best pass first point guard in the NBA, and he's only started to show signs of his pre injury self in the last 25 games of his career.