Rajon Rondo = BJ Armstrong.

[kenmaine]

My two cents, or random thoughts-

Rondo is ten times better than BJ Armstrong ever was.

He's one of the top three or so pgs in the NBA.

Stats are almost irrelevant in his case(much like DJ, or Posey, for that matter).

If he could shoot better(IMO his only fault) he'd be a hall-of-famer. And it's kind of unfair to criticize him for not shooting open shots AND also criticize him for being a poor shooter, although they're both valid. But it seems that he's finding  ways to overcome his weaknesses and still be extremely valuable to the team. And yes, I hope his shooting improves.

He's one of the most exciting players to watch in the NBA.

His decision making is about the best I've ever seen, but no one is perfect. Just think about it-  if he occasionally passes up a shot he should have taken, does that hurt the team as mush as another player taking a stupid shot ? Seriously, think about that one.

The C's probably need an enforcer to protect him- he Does get hammered by opposing big men and the C's never retaliate.

Here's another thing to think about- in almost every game where he's matched up against a superstar guard, he outplays the other guy.
 
OK- I apologize for ranting, but some C's fans can't seem to see and appreciate  what's right in front of their eyes.
I haven't been here for awhile because I got tired of reading the same stuff about how bad Rondo was, and we couldn't win without another point guard, how Leon was too small and 'didn't understand the defense', how stupid TA was, how 'immature' PP was, how KG should go inside more and wasn't clutch, etc. I guess #17 was just luck

Anyway, I love this team and am enjoying the season, and don't see any real reason, barring injury of course, they can't repeat.

[Fafnir]

We can both like Rondo but at the same time disagree about some aspects of his game, no? I think that Rondo's decision making is a bit inconsistent. He may not be a high turnover guy himself, but that does not automatically make him an excellent decision maker. He undeniably has bouts of sloppiness, some stretches of timidity, and although me may not be attributed turnovers for many of the mistakes he makes, that does not mean that he isn't still making these mistakes. Rajon Rondo is the point guard of this team. Doc may not run the offense through him, but he is still the primary ball handler. And so far this year, the Celtics have been extremely turnover prone. As the point guard, Rondo should be held partly responsible for the team's turnover problems, whether most of the turnovers technically belong to him, or not.

  What players never have bouts of sloppiness? You're holding him to an awfully high standard. Blaming Rondo when Paul makes a bad pass or Perk sets a moving pick or Leon gets stripped or the like seems a little extreme.

I'm not trying to hold Rondo responsible for all the bad plays other people make. I'm just trying to make the point that the term "decision making" is not a synonym for assist-to-turnover ratio, although I'll admit they are closely related. I do feel strongly that as the point guard of the team, the decisions Rondo make can lead to turnovers that are technically made by others, in the same way that the good decisions Rondo make can lead to assists that are technically made by others.

Thats true, AS/TO ratio is merely an indicator of good decision making. Another good indicator in my mind is eFG%. Taking good shots, which by definition are ones you make, is a key to playing smart basketball.

What indicators do you use other than those Toine43? We all have our own "gut feeling" of course but we're all big enough basketball geeks that I'm sure we look at other things.

In my mind, all offensive stat categories play a role in decision making (save FT% and perhaps a couple of others I'm forgetting). Decision making entails knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your teammates, knowing your opponent, keeping in mind what your coach wants from you, the score of the game, the quarter, the foul situation, and the list goes on. There are so many factors that play a role in a player's decision making that it is impossible to evaluate it using only one or two stat categories. And on top of that, even if you're a person who tends to pick a couple of indicators to judge a player's ability, I think that you must look at different indicators for different positions. For instance, while it may make sense to say that Chris Paul is a better decision maker than Rajon Rondo because he has a higher assist-to-turnover ratio, it is much tougher to compare the assist-to-turnover ratio of power forwards and centers. What stat can we use to prove that KG is a better decision maker than Zach Randolph? I'm sure there's a bunch out there, but I think often times it's better just to try and prove your point using observation. Stats should be the tiebreaker of an argument.

I agree that they're a good tie-breaker, especially when two informed basketball fans disagree! They are also a useful tool to strip away personal biases and take a fresh look.

As for what stats show that Zach Randolph is a worse decision maker than KG?

Assist Percentage
Total Assists per 36
Turnover Percentage
Total Turnovers per 36 (this is despite KG having a higher usage or in other words the ball more often)
KG also shoots a better percentage

So its actually really easy to find the stats for simple comparisons like KG versus ZR. Its just as easy for the tough debates too, which is why they're so useful.

[rondilla]

Rondo needs picks set for him. When he gets them he gets into the paint. When he doesn't, it makes it much more difficult. I don't know how much more I can take of Donny and Tommy commenting on how effective Rondo is when he gets into the paint, while completely ignoring how him getting into the paint is almost always preceded by a pick being set for him. When the kid drives without the aid of a pick, not only is it harder for him to score, but his teammates have the unfortunate habit of making like statues which makes creating for them pretty hard. The act of setting him the pick gets everyone on the same page.

In addition to that he actually needs the ball in his hands a lot more. He is our best ball handler and passer, and we are team plagued by turnovers. That should be a no brainer, but evidently this has slipped past Doc. I consider it a minor miracle that the kid is averaging as many assists as he is. No one anywhere near him on the league leader list has the ball taken away from him by his own coach as much as Rondo does.

Doc whines about "execution". Call me crazy, but when you have three Hall of Famers on the court, who all average over 20 ppg for their careers, and you still aren't scoring points efficiently, then maybe the offensive scheme is the problem.

Regarding his lack of aggression, I was watching Eric Snow on NBA.TV after our victory against the Pistons. He commented, in depth, about how the Pistons were using A.I. in a passive manner on the offensive end, and how that was translating into passive basketball from A.I. This was Allen "Bubba Chuck" Iverson he was talking about, the league's most notorious gunner and a long time vet. I find it interesting that people here are wondering at our 22 year old point guard's aggression level when on the vast majority of possessions he is handing the ball off and being excluded from what is happening on the court. He's either on the weakside (not being passed to) or on the baseline (not being passed to). Meanwhile his teammates are turning the ball over and generating bad shots.

Having Paul and Ray run the offense isn't working, and it never really worked that well anyways. It was inconsistent last season, and horrific this season. Let those guys concentrate on doing what they do best, which is score the rock. Let the kid, who is a much better passer and ball handler than them anyways, run the offense and do the table setting. I'm fine with working the ball into Ray and Paul so that they can take advantage of a mismatch, or when they are hot. I'm not OK with them running the offense, especially in the case of Ray. Ray is a solid passer and handler at the 2, but when he tried to run the offense he ends up dribbling the air out of the ball.

I thought that I'd start off with this one. I wrote this before he broke out.

[rondilla]

So, by your assesment as long as Rondo is not turning the ball over more than some of the rest of our team, he's fine?

In a per48 context, he's 20th in the league in turnovers among PG's. And I don't think your assesment that they're taking the ball away from Rondo is correct. This was true early last season, but it is not the case right now.

But lets assume you're correct, then by your estimation his turnovers should not be this high because he's really not participating much in the offense. If he were, then his turnovers would increase. So, you can say that your results don't really depict how much Rondo takes care of the ball. It simply might depict that he doesn't have the ball enough in our offense to even have a chance at causing a turnover. But as I said, this is really not correct. Rondo's is very involved in the offense... more than I would like.

Also, Rondo is the one calling plays. Rondo is running the offense, and it has been this way since the later portion of last season and during the playoffs. That he has the ball in his hand this often, and making poor decisions with the ball in addition to not being a threat to the opponent is precisely why he shouldn't have the ball as often as he does.

I''l take this point by point

1. Rondo is 20th in turnovers, per 48 by a point guard? That's nice. He also happens to be 8th in assists, per 48 by a point guard. Only four of the point guards in the league who have more assists than he does actually have a better assist to turnover ratio. That is being a very efficient passer.

2. His turnovers are where they are because he is aggressive with his passing when he has teh chance. Doesn't get that manyy, but when he dopes he makes the most of it. While this offensive scheme usually forces him to either simply pass the ball off, or make difficult feed passes which don't usually result in assists because the Big Three don't go right into their shots (assist to bad pass counts against all bad passes, no matter if an assist would have been generated or not), Rajon has a 4.8 mark, which is VERY respectable. Let's check out the others, why don't we

Ray Allen 1.9
Pierce 2.3
Garnett 2.1
Perk 1.3
House 1.8
Tony Allen has a 7.0, but he also has 7 total assists and has just been looking to score.

Compare Rondo's 4.8 to some of the other leaders in assists

Paul 7.1
Kidd 4.5
Nash 2.8
Duhon 6.9
B. Davis 4.1

Pretty solid in comparison

He is 57th, amongst all point guards, in usage. Only Jason Kidd and Duhon are near him in that stat amongst all point guards. What do those guys have in common with Rondo? They also have the advantage in playing in offensive systems which are much faster paced than ours.

3. If Rondo was more involved his turnovers would ceratainly increase, but not by as much as his assists would go up, and also his scoring. Kind of funny how Rondo played great last season when Ray and Garnett went down, huh? According to your way of thinking, by giving him the ball more it should have hurt him, right? What actually happened, though, was that his efficiency went way UP. The team offense did as well, by the way. That 9 game stretch with Garnett was one of our best stretches of the year last season - in scoring, field goal percentage and turnovers. Rondo scored 16 ppg, shooting 53-55%, didn't turn the ball over much, and played like an animal. The team went 7 and 2, losing two extremely tight road games in Cleveland and Orlando.... where we also lost BY MORE points with Garnett. Am I saying that K.G. hurt us offensively? No, just not having Rondo involved enough did. Losing Garnett was offset by actually using Rondo the right way. We missed K.G.'s defense. The offense actually improved.

That is what drive me up the pole. Doc actually knows how to do this. He just doesn't want to. In his offensive world the wings run the show and the point guard is the dude who stands in the corner spotting up for threes. We turned the ball over too much last season, and it is even worse now.

4. Rondo is running the offense which Doc tells him to run. In fact Doc specifically said just that in a recent interview. Dribbling the ball down the court, handing the ball of to Paul and Ray and clearing to the weakside is Doc's base offense. I especially like the Ray Allen 10 second play where 10 seconds get wasted setting a triple pick so that Rondo can pass Ray the ball, not to actually SHOOT it, but so that Ray can be a playmaker.

Have you guys noticed that we haven't run the floppy play, in point 4, much lately. No need to. I'm actually being proved wrong by Rondo himself in point 3, but in a good way. Point 3 has a very solid commentary on Rondo's performance when he is involved in the way that I called for. Rondo is performing almost the same (a little better actually),being used this way, than he did last season being used the same way. 16.6 ppg over the last 5 shooting .557 from the field.

I know you guys don't like "I told you so" stuff, but seriously, that is a bullseye.

[Tr1boy]

wow almost another triple double guys. This kid is for real. That three was awsome.

To answer the question of this thread hell no rondo is nothing like bj armstrong. Armstrong shot the ball well and made easy passes to jordan, played within the system well but thats about it

Rondo is in another world and actually a fusion between two players that is mookie blaylock (athletic, great defender) and jason kidd (rebound, passing, scoring, fastbreak, triple double threat every night)

Rondos shooting is also really coming around. Love the kid

[BudweiserCeltic]

Rondo has really turned the corner, he's doing exactly what I've wanted him to do since the beginning of last season. Since that Knicks game he has show vast improvement, particularly in his decision making... he's ready to have full control of the offense, and the team is trusting it to him.

His confidence is up in the sky and it's showing in all facets of the game. I put a lot of blame on Doc during the playoffs for the level of control he had put in our offense in Rondo's hand. I didn't feel he was ready, and we struggled quite a bit.

Rondo really frustrated me last season... he had all these skills, but he still hadn't put his game up to the level of his skills, he has done so for the last 7 or so games. He has been stellar.

Nothing to do with his jumpshots or things of that nature. His bringing the ball up quickly. He's putting pressure on his defender REGARDLESS of a pick or not. He's hitting people coming off screens at the right time, hís passes have been  more accurate (one of his weaknesses last season).

Even his defense has improved; he's been staying in front of his man constantly regardless of who it is. In all, I don't see anything to complain about.

THIS is Rondo playing good, not all those stat padded games we had seen in the past.