Are you trying to say that he has a higher shooting percentage when he's not playing aggressively? Because that's ridiculous. I don't think that the 5-25 stretch in the 4 games before his aggressiveness reappeared badly skewed his statistics upward.
From the inside yes. Back when bad Rondo was around the guy would pass up layup opportunities. I think you have to be blind not to see that. Your conflating his speed with finishing ability.
His speed gets him into the lane. His speed allows him to beat people for easy layups. That doesn't mean he finishes well. He wasn't elevating to the basket well. You haven't produced a statistic that would really "prove" me wrong.
You would need to track how many times he gets INTO the lane - and how many shots he takes. A guy like Rondo who can get anywhere he wants on the court - and has outside shooters will of course take plenty of shots from the paint.
Tony Allen is only 0.1 points behind Rondo in points in the paint and he gets fouled more then Rondo. Do you think Allen finishes as well as Lebron? Like I said the statitsics your relying on don't track what I am talking about.
And have you considered that some of his "bad" stretches are injury related? Aside from the beating he takes on some of his drives I thought he twisted his ankle during one of the earlier games. Others in this thread have noted that he's been lacking some of his explosiveness. If he starts off the season playing well, has a few bad games and then starts playing well again the answer isn't necessarily jeckyl and hyde.
I am not anti-Rondo. He was playing very poorly - now he is playing much better. Injuries are obviously a possibility. But nonetheless he was playing like garbage for much of the early part of the season. He would pass up wide open jumpers -drive to the line and pass out to Ray or Paul for contested shots. Like i said your so biased you don't see this.
I see Rondo for what he really is. Your trying to invalidate very obvious observations by twisting statistics. Rondo doesn't shoot well from the outside. He doesn't finish as well as other top NBA guards with regards to difficult layups so this year he has been taking less of them.
Last year he chucked it up from the inside to the tune of .573 percent. He of course played more aggressively last year (and only recently has returned to that kind of form.) I haven't seen any change in his ability to finish so that's probably the kind of number he will end up with.
Pete
Sweet17- I don't see how you can make the statement that "you see Rondo for what he is." Everyone has a different perspective on the Rondo subject, and you can't just assume that you're right and everyone else is wrong. I know I don't. Also, don't be afraid to admit that you're not a big Rondo fan. From reading many of your posts over the past couple of seasons, it's clear to me that you are one of the most neagative about Rondo on the blog. Again, that's okay, but it rubs people the wrong way when you make the posts that you do and then claim that you are a Rondo guy.
Now on to the post itself. Rondo went through a long stretch where he passed up many-a-layup. The thing that people don't seem to be considering is that Rondo looked to be just plain scared of finishing around the rim. Now, it's tough to prove that a professional basketball player would be scared of anything on the court, but Rondo's a unique case. I think it's pretty easy to see why he would would have some fear. Every time he finishes strong, he gets absolutely clobbered! It is understandable that at some point after crashing hard to the floor layup after layup that Rondo would start to shy away from going up strong. Eventually, after enough of Doc yelling at him for not being aggressive enough, he snaps out of it and finshes once again with reckless abandon.
As far as how good of a finisher Rondo is, I think he's an excellent finisher. This, I feel, is confirmed by BballTim's stats, although my opinion about his finishing comes from observation. Yes, he tends to broadjump rather than highjump at times, but that's his style and it works for him. Most of the time, Rondo does the majority of the work getting himself into position to finish, and then finishes easily using that broadjump. Take his two favorite moves as examples of this. There's the move where he fakes the behind the back pass and lays it in. That move is not conducive to a highjump; however, it typically leads to an easy lay in (watch any youtube Rondo mix and you'll see what I'm saying about this move). His other favorite, the Dwayne Wade step-in-one-direction-and-then-the-other-and-then-lay-it-in move, also cannot be highjumped off of. Rondo is capable of highjumping. He has risen to slam home missed jump shots numerous times, and once in a while he'll just drive in and slam one home (see Pistons game last year). Again. he doesn't dunk often, because he gets killed whenever he dunks it traffic (see Pistons game last year).
Finally, how about we get back to the very basics, and see if we agree or disagree on what Rondo is:
Shooting- Below Average
Finishing- Above Average
Ball-Handling- One of the best in the league
Quickness- One of the best in the league
Team Defense- Above Average
On the Ball Defense- One of the best in the league
Ability to Set Tempo as the Point Guard- Above Average (Perhaps on a different team without The Big Three he would be one of the best)
Decision Making- Average (Great at finding teammates but can be prone to making turnovers, and has stuggled at times with passing up open jumpers and layups)
I don't understand how the idea that Rondo is "turnover prone" has become conventional wisdom. The kid has had one 7 turnover game, one 6 turnover game and four 5 turnover games in his entire career, including the postseason. He doesn't have one game this season with more than three. All of our starters turn the ball over as much, or more, than he does, yet he is somehow the one with the problems even though he's a hair outside the top ten in assists for the league.
The kid is more than solid in his decision making. Does he make mistakes? Yeah, and so does everyone else in the league. Personally I think he is too conservative, and Doc hasn't given him enough freedom (at least until lately). It is really tough to average as many assists as Rajon does in an offense like this, and to do so with an assist to turnover ratio over 3. Look at what the change to a more slowed down style has done to Nash, and he's a two-time MVP.
I'm OK with much of the fair criticism that the kid gets, but even people who evidently like him just go along with this "decision making" stuff. He is not turnover prone. He never really was. A bad game here or there? Sure. Isolated events, though. They have ridden him heavily for the last four games. Was he coughing the ball up a lot? No. Was he making a lot of bad decisions? No. He actually has more steals than turnovers.
I actually believe that the guy who should have the most turnovers is the point guard (or the best primary ball handler you have if the point guard blows, eg. Wade). Not that he should be looking to turn it over, but that by having that guy initiate most of the offense, that it reduces everyone else's turnovers. A great case of this is the Hornets and Chris Paul. He leads his team in turnovers, but his team benefits overall from this happening. I wouldn't want Rondo having the ball as much as CP3, but having it a lot more, consistently, would make Paul, Ray and Kevin more efficient.
I think that the it is already showing for Kevin. After having a truly awful beginning to the season with regards to turnovers and assists, he has had 9 assists against only 2 turnovers in these last three games. I think a big reason behind that is that instead of stupidly forcing it into Kevin, while Rondo is watching on the weakside, that Rondo is actually running the offense and is ensuring that Kevin is getting the ball in better places with less focus on him. Easy alley-oops, dump offs on drives, feeds on the break, kick outs for WIDE OPEN jump shots, etc. Kevin is shooting 66% percent from the field over the last 3 games, not turning the ball over, and is scoring at a higher rate to boot. The only reason that he averaged around 16 ppg was that he only averaged 27.8 mpg. Project that out to 36 mpg, and he would be scoring almost 21 ppg, and very, very efficiently.
Ray's turnovers have gone down too, while his assists have gone up. The only one who was bucking the trend was Paul, who I believe was somewhat frustrated with not having the ball in his hands as much as before. He'll get it together, though, if we keep playing this way because it is just so much easier.
