By Ryan Fortin
Throughout Rajon Rondo’s career, he has always shone under the spotlight. He is, of course, Boston’s best point guard and arguably the best player on the team. But as Grantland’s Bill Simmons has noted on occasion, he seems to save his best games for when he appears on national television, including many of his triple-doubles. Is it true that Rondo actually tries harder or performs better when he is in front of the entire country?
I decided to test this theory by compiling data over the past two years and running a t-test, using his non-nationally televised stats and his nationally televised stats to see if the two groups were significantly different. The results seem to back up the critics:
continued here...
http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/national-tv-rondo-actually-exists/
BballTim, aka Rondo's hype man, didn't you say on several occasions that this wasn't true? Also, the level of competition is much higher for the nationally televised games, so it makes the rise in performace even more peculiar.
How did he pick the data for the study? Which networks did he choose as nationally televised? Did he include the playoffs? I'd guess that he did. A good apples to apples comparison would be regular season nationally televised games vs regular season locally televised games. I'm guessing he added in the playoff games to skew the results towards what he's trying to prove.
Do you have the answers to any of these questions? Did the questions even occur to you? I'd guess that your interest in the subject began and ended with whether it made Rondo look bad. Knowing enough to ask these things doesn't necessarily make me a "hype machine".
I've never denied that he puts up better numbers in the playoffs than in the regular season. It's due to the importance of the game, not the size of the audience. It's very unlikely that you could look at his play or the box scores for two games vs Philly or Atl and be able to tell which one was on csn and which one wasn't despite the fact that you've probably convinced yourself that you can.
As for Rondo's play holding up well against stiff competition, that's generally seen as a good thing. Most fans love having players that come up big in big games, this blog seems to be the exception in calling that a flaw.
And if you break down the numbers to the ridiculous like stating
It's very unlikely that you could look at his play or the box scores for two games vs Philly or Atl and be able to tell which one was on csn and which one wasn't
I mean anyone can do that for anything to minimize its effects. Heck, my son in his part time job just got a $2000 a year raise and only makes $10,000 a year there. Now a 20% raise seems really good but if I told him that a 3 cent raise per minute doesn't sound so hot, he might get discouraged. But a 20% raise is really good.
Personally I think this passes the stat test and the eye test. Rondo appears to play better or give a better effort during nationally televised games and now there is a study that shows he is slightly better statistically during those games.
I actually think that is awesome that he can raise the level of his game during those games, which tend to be against better opponents and more important games(playoffs). His regular game and stats are All-Star worthy. His games on national tv even better. I think that is a positive for Rondo not a negative. I want my players to be able to raise the level of their play during big games. Don't you?