Author Topic: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style  (Read 31132 times)

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Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #180 on: January 30, 2013, 11:13:24 AM »

Offline eugen

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The point is...Is better to trust the Rondos offensive talent+egoism or to trust more offensive productive work team?!

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #181 on: January 30, 2013, 11:18:51 AM »

Offline Galeto

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You know what? Lee is a journeyman bench SG or fringe starter at best and has been on 4 teams in 5 years. The last thing he should be doing is complaining about how an offense runs, how many touches he gets or anything else.

He's just gotten to a good team for the first time since his rookie year. And before the season is half over and just after that team's starting PG and All-Star goes down with a season ending injury, he starts complaining?

Ship him out of town along with Bass. I don't need role players complaining about how the team is being run, their playing time or their touches. When the Big Three came together they all sacrificed their touches and shots and the way they were used to things being run in favor of a team concept. Last thing I want while those players are still on the team is role players complaining about stuff those HOFers sacrificed to win a championship.
Lee has not gone out and said this to the media.  Have you (or anyone) heard him say it?  Lowe says he got this out of "back channels".  Lee is entitled to his feelings and opinions and he's allowed to share those opinions with who he is close to.  If that leaks, it leaks, but he's not going out and selfishly complaining about it publicly.  And when we have as much offensive talent as we do and our offense is as inefficient as it is, well there are 2 natural places to blame - the guy designing the offense (Doc) or the guy running the offense (Rondo).

If the 2008 celtics were under .500 at this point in the season, I have a feeling there would have been grumbling.  I think if everything was ticking, Courtney wouldn't be a unhappy at all.  I believe there is reason for EVERYONE on this team to be unhappy with how the offense is performing and because it is performing far lower than what is expected of them.  Where you place your blame... like I said I think it comes down to 2 possible places.

Thank you for your voice of sanity. It's quite true: this is on Doc and/or Rondo.

It's only logical to think that if Danny goes after certain players, it's because he likes their game and wants to incorporate their game into Boston's scheme. So he goes out and gets Jason Terry, a great pick-and-roll player in Dallas ... and Doc hardly uses him in the P&R. Danny goes to great lengths to get Courtney Lee, who's quite athletic and is capable of cutting and getting to the rim ... yet Doc glues him to the corner 3. Danny brings in Leandro Barbosa, a player known for an explosive offensive game, a guy who'll just put his head down and get to the rack, more often than not leading to something good for his team ... and Doc hardly uses him.

Doc has always favored the older guys, but the older guys can no longer carry the load, so Doc puts the ball in Rondo's hands more and more, which isn't Rondo's fault, but we don't have a multiscreen offensive player (Ray) anymore, and Rondo doesn't like to drive, because he dislikes contact, so what ends up happening? Pound, pound, pound, until Pierce or KG get open, or else Rondo puts up a (for him) low-percentage outside shot, while all these other players—who have their own gifts and abilities—are left standing around like a bunch of window-display dummies, not only to create or play to their strengths.

I, for one, am excited to see what could happen with our offense now that Doc doesn't have his binky to rely on. It certainly looked alright in the Miami game.

I think both Doc and Rondo were to blame.  For instance, who you do blame for Terry only taking 9 shots off the dribble all year after using screens playing with Rondo? I can't say it's all Doc because Rondo's the one who had the ball all the time which invariably, you know, prevented shots off the dribble for Terry.  But at the same time, isn't Doc the coach and couldn't he have demanded that Terry see the ball more?  At the same time there too, this is the coach who complained to the media after a game in Chicago a few seasons ago that Big Baby took too many shots in the fourth quarter and that they should have involved Pierce and Ray more (I think they had like 2 shots combined).  If only Doc knew the coach of the Boston Celtics and had the power to change things.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #182 on: January 30, 2013, 11:21:11 AM »

Offline Celtics18

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This isn't surprising at all.  As boring as basketball is to watch when one guy dribbles the ball all the time, I mean all time in every situation, it has to be just as boring to participate in.  Doc created a monster in the mid-way point of the 2010 season when he decided that the way to get Rondo playing aggressively was by giving him every outlet pass and not letting anyone else bring up the ball.  I noticed the change immediately because it was so repetitive and so unlike how the Celtics had been playing before and how every other team plays. 

One of my frustrations with this new style of play, beyond how tedious and boring it was, was that it wasn't successful.  The Rondo Dribbling Exhibition led to low-rated offenses.  At one point, wouldn't you decide that it's not working and change up, even if just to see what happpens? I get that the counterclaim is that his teammates got old and Rondo had to take on the biggest burden of anybody else in the league but what was Rondo backstopping really?  Was he preventing the Celtics from being the 30th ranked offense in the league?  I doubt it.

The Celtics aren't the 30th ranked offense in the league.  They are the 21st ranked offense in the league.  Their field goal percentage and TS% are among the top of the league as is their assist rate.  The two factors killing their offense the most are lack of offensive rebounding and poor three point shooting.  Neither of those two things can be blamed on Rondo.  We have neither the personnel nor the offensive philosophy to be a good offensive rebounding team.  That's certainly not Rondo's fault.  The fact that both Terry and Pierce-- our two primary three point shooters--have been unable to make open looks from long range at anywhere near their career averages so far this season can't be pinned on Rondo, either.

You missed my point.  First off though, they are actually the 28th rated offense this year.  They were 27th last year too.  My point was, was letting Rondo dominate the ball so much saving them from being the 30th rated offense or perhaps the worst offense of all time?  Even if you were Doc and said, Yes, Rondo is the guy saving this team from scoring 60 a night, wouldn't you want to at least see what the alternative could be?  What was there to lose?  I could understand keeping with the status quo if Rondo was directing top 10 offenses but to not change ANYTHING in the face of putrid offenses, well, that made me hate Doc's coaching.

You seem to have missed my point, as well.  My point is that our poor offensive numbers don't stem from the ball being in Rondo's hands.  They stem from poor offensive rebounding and poor three point shooting.   Rondo has control over a lot of what happens with the offense, but he doesn't have control over the fact that Doc has designed a system that down plays crashing the offensive boards.  He also doesn't have control over the fact that his best three point shooters are shooting well below their own standards from long range so far this season. 
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PG: G. Hill/D. Schroder
SG: C. Lee/B. Hield/T. Luwawu
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PF:  E. Ilyasova/J. Jerebko/R. Christmas
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Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #183 on: January 30, 2013, 11:26:03 AM »

Offline Lightskinsmurf

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I think this team has been underachieving for a variety of reasons and Rondo's play and Pierce's play,  are two of them, though, IMHO, they are down on the bottom of the list.

One of the things on the top of the list is the players Danny put together to make up this team. Terry and Barbosa are players that want the ball in their hands and want to score, sometimes to the detriment of a team offense. Now we have Lee and Bass complaining of touches or the offense. We also have a player that left for personal reasons and a big who is useless and another that can never stay healthy.

I think Danny messed up this summer. He never got a decent backup big man worth a [dang]. Several players in the locker room were expecting to continue to play their game, regardless of how the Celtics functioned. Danny must have thought that if KG, PP and RA would sacrifice their games to make a team better than others would too. Obviously he was wrong.

I see a house cleaning in this team's future.

I couldn't disagree more with that statement. I to agree that rondo and pierce are part of the problem but they are at the very top of the list!

Rondos inconsistent play and pierce bricking everything and mediocre defense is a HUGE problem with this team. Those are like two of your best players not bringing it every night!!

  On 82games they rank each team by position in terms of PER differential (for example, your total pf PER compared to the total PER for power forwards playing against you).

http://www.82games.com/1213/BYPOSL10.HTM

  Our team has the 4th best PER differential in the league at sf and pg, 19th best at c, 24th best at sg and 29th best at pf. I'd say that putting our pg and sf at the top of the list of our team's problems is pretty far removed from reality.

You're kidding me with this right? Rondo plays lazy defense ALOT. Anybody that watches the games sees that. That is a huge problem with this team.

  I get it. You think that players like Bradley and Lee, who play around 22 minutes a game and spend much of their time on offense doing nothing besides standing in a corner, put in more effort than Rondo on defense. You might be right. You also seem to think that's the main way to evaluate a player's worth to a team, and that you can ignore the fact that Rondo's contributions on offense dwarfs theirs. That's where you're wrong.


Well maybe if the offense wasn't designed around rondo dominating the ball 95percent of the time and people felt more involved then they wouldn't just stand around. I didn't IGNORE anything. I named the problems with this team. I didn't bring up rondos offensive numbers hence i don't think that's a huge problem with the team......... ::) All tho i do think rondo should score more.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #184 on: January 30, 2013, 11:47:08 AM »

Offline rocknrollforyoursoul

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I agree with you that Jet and Pierce's cold shooting has been a big detriment, and I also agree with you that the lack of offensive rebounding is part of Doc's system, so yes, some blame goes to Jet and Pierce, and some goes to Doc.

Doc deserves another measure of blame, as well, for not utilizing the strengths (driving, slashing, pick and roll) of the guys Danny brought in this season. He also deserves blame for decreeing that Rondo have the ball 90% of the time.

And yes, Rondo does drive a fair amount, but he's not a mad dog about it, you know? I mean, he's fast, and has a great handle, and is also really good at getting off shots at crazy angles that are hard to block, but he doesn't go in there enough for me—and I think it directly relates to his poor free-throw shooting. So maybe he isn't "afraid" of contact, per se, but he definitely shows a hesitancy at times that probably has something to do with free-throw shooting.

Yes, our offense is usually one of the most efficient in terms of FG%, and it's usually at or near the top in assists, but it also regularly takes a low number of shots, which somewhat negates the high shooting percentage, and it also goes stagnant a lot. Why? Because if the jumpers aren't falling, there's no Plan B, no adjustments, no variety with which to kickstart our offense and at the same time throw off the defense.
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Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #185 on: January 30, 2013, 11:54:03 AM »

Offline BballTim

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This isn't surprising at all.  As boring as basketball is to watch when one guy dribbles the ball all the time, I mean all time in every situation, it has to be just as boring to participate in.  Doc created a monster in the mid-way point of the 2010 season when he decided that the way to get Rondo playing aggressively was by giving him every outlet pass and not letting anyone else bring up the ball.  I noticed the change immediately because it was so repetitive and so unlike how the Celtics had been playing before and how every other team plays. 

One of my frustrations with this new style of play, beyond how tedious and boring it was, was that it wasn't successful.  The Rondo Dribbling Exhibition led to low-rated offenses.  At one point, wouldn't you decide that it's not working and change up, even if just to see what happpens? I get that the counterclaim is that his teammates got old and Rondo had to take on the biggest burden of anybody else in the league but what was Rondo backstopping really?  Was he preventing the Celtics from being the 30th ranked offense in the league?  I doubt it.

  While it's true that Rondo had to take on a bigger offensive burden because his teammates got old, the counterclaim to your argument is that it's just not true that the "Rondo experiment" was unsuccessful.

  Surely you should realize by now that the biggest factor in our having a low rated offense is offensive rebounding. That's based more on team strategy and not having a strong low post threat than on anything Rondo does.

  But one of the main components of how efficiently your offense operates is how efficiently you score, which can be measured in TS%. Look at the effect Rondo's assist streak (when so many people were complaining incessantly about Rondo dominating the ball and spending the game trying to get as many assists as possible to the detriment of the offense) had on our scoring efficiency. When his assist streak started in 2011 we were 10th in the league in TS%, during the streak we were probably top 5. We were scoring about 3 more points a game from the same number of shots during the streak.

  The same effect was seen this year as the streak continued. When the streak ended we 4th in TS%, now we're 14th. I'd also say that Rondo averaging 12 assists per game in the playoffs was instrumental in our being 6th in TS% despite probably having the toughest combined defensive opponents in the playoffs.

  The other component of offensive efficiency (besides shooting efficiency and offensive rebounding) is turnovers. Suffice to say our turnover rate was lower during the streak last year, lower during the streak this year, and better than average during the playoffs.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #186 on: January 30, 2013, 12:07:57 PM »

Offline BballTim

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This isn't surprising at all.  As boring as basketball is to watch when one guy dribbles the ball all the time, I mean all time in every situation, it has to be just as boring to participate in.  Doc created a monster in the mid-way point of the 2010 season when he decided that the way to get Rondo playing aggressively was by giving him every outlet pass and not letting anyone else bring up the ball.  I noticed the change immediately because it was so repetitive and so unlike how the Celtics had been playing before and how every other team plays. 

One of my frustrations with this new style of play, beyond how tedious and boring it was, was that it wasn't successful.  The Rondo Dribbling Exhibition led to low-rated offenses.  At one point, wouldn't you decide that it's not working and change up, even if just to see what happpens? I get that the counterclaim is that his teammates got old and Rondo had to take on the biggest burden of anybody else in the league but what was Rondo backstopping really?  Was he preventing the Celtics from being the 30th ranked offense in the league?  I doubt it.

The Celtics aren't the 30th ranked offense in the league.  They are the 21st ranked offense in the league.  Their field goal percentage and TS% are among the top of the league as is their assist rate.  The two factors killing their offense the most are lack of offensive rebounding and poor three point shooting.  Neither of those two things can be blamed on Rondo.  We have neither the personnel nor the offensive philosophy to be a good offensive rebounding team.  That's certainly not Rondo's fault.  The fact that both Terry and Pierce-- our two primary three point shooters--have been unable to make open looks from long range at anywhere near their career averages so far this season can't be pinned on Rondo, either.

You missed my point.  First off though, they are actually the 28th rated offense this year.  They were 27th last year too.  My point was, was letting Rondo dominate the ball so much saving them from being the 30th rated offense or perhaps the worst offense of all time?  Even if you were Doc and said, Yes, Rondo is the guy saving this team from scoring 60 a night, wouldn't you want to at least see what the alternative could be?  What was there to lose?  I could understand keeping with the status quo if Rondo was directing top 10 offenses but to not change ANYTHING in the face of putrid offenses, well, that made me hate Doc's coaching.

  Our scoring efficiency (TS%) is above average with Rondo running the offense and creating open shots for people. Maybe he's saving us from having a below average TS%, which wouldn't work out well for our offense. BTW, those numbers (1-30) are just rankings, not the actual number. You're acting like if you're 30th you can't go any lower. Sometimes the 30th team is .01 ppp behind the 29th ranked team, sometimes the difference is significantly greater.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #187 on: January 30, 2013, 12:09:22 PM »

Offline BballTim

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The point is...Is better to trust the Rondos offensive talent+egoism or to trust more offensive productive work team?!

  That's not the choice, the choice is trust the Rondos offensive talent+egoism or to trust *less* offensive productive work team

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #188 on: January 30, 2013, 12:12:09 PM »

Offline vinnie

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Jason Terry alluded to some of the same issues, although more gently than Zach Lowe's quote about Lee:

Quote
“Don’t get me wrong,” he prefaced, “Rajon (Rondo) makes us the best we can possibly be.”

(You can just hear that BUT coming, can’t you?)

“But,” he continued, “now, having multiple ball-handlers out there, it’s just going to make us unpredictable. You don’t know who’s going to handle it. I think the wings are going to get out there and run a little harder. We should be able to play in transition a little more.”

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/blogs/courtsideview/x472365769/Celtics-practice-report-Jason-Terry-talks-candidly-about-life-after-Rajon-Rondo

I think it's fair to say that a lot of guys would like to play in a more open offensive system.

  It's fair to say that a lot of guys would like to take 20+ shots a game as well. That doesn't mean that would be best for the team. Terry even acknowledges that, although he'd like to have a bigger role in the offense, that having Rondo run the offense makes the team the best it can possibly be.

  By the way, from reading the article, how did you feel about the fairly clear inference in the article that at least some of the players were going to play harder and with more energy now? People here would be killing Rondo if he ever intimated something like that, now the players who haven't been putting in the effort get a pass because it's somehow Rondo's fault.

  By the way, I loved this quote:

“Now we really have to execute our game plan,” he said before Tuesday’s workout. “A lot of times Rajon was able to call his own game, and now we’ve really got to be in tune to what Doc’s saying in timeouts.

Great post. If Rondo ever said these things he would be run out of town on a rail. It makes me happy that these guys are going to really make an effort now, but guess what, their effort won't come near producing the results that Rondo does. Too bad they didn't play hard enough before Rondo got hurt.  ???

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #189 on: January 30, 2013, 12:12:43 PM »

Offline Galeto

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Regardless of how the Celtics offense looks, whether it craters to the worst in the league and becomes one of the most futile ever or not, their defense should improve a lot, more than enough to make up for any decline in the offense.  In the end, that's the only math that matters.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #190 on: January 30, 2013, 12:14:03 PM »

Offline BballTim

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I think this team has been underachieving for a variety of reasons and Rondo's play and Pierce's play,  are two of them, though, IMHO, they are down on the bottom of the list.

One of the things on the top of the list is the players Danny put together to make up this team. Terry and Barbosa are players that want the ball in their hands and want to score, sometimes to the detriment of a team offense. Now we have Lee and Bass complaining of touches or the offense. We also have a player that left for personal reasons and a big who is useless and another that can never stay healthy.

I think Danny messed up this summer. He never got a decent backup big man worth a [dang]. Several players in the locker room were expecting to continue to play their game, regardless of how the Celtics functioned. Danny must have thought that if KG, PP and RA would sacrifice their games to make a team better than others would too. Obviously he was wrong.

I see a house cleaning in this team's future.

I couldn't disagree more with that statement. I to agree that rondo and pierce are part of the problem but they are at the very top of the list!

Rondos inconsistent play and pierce bricking everything and mediocre defense is a HUGE problem with this team. Those are like two of your best players not bringing it every night!!

  On 82games they rank each team by position in terms of PER differential (for example, your total pf PER compared to the total PER for power forwards playing against you).

http://www.82games.com/1213/BYPOSL10.HTM

  Our team has the 4th best PER differential in the league at sf and pg, 19th best at c, 24th best at sg and 29th best at pf. I'd say that putting our pg and sf at the top of the list of our team's problems is pretty far removed from reality.

You're kidding me with this right? Rondo plays lazy defense ALOT. Anybody that watches the games sees that. That is a huge problem with this team.

  I get it. You think that players like Bradley and Lee, who play around 22 minutes a game and spend much of their time on offense doing nothing besides standing in a corner, put in more effort than Rondo on defense. You might be right. You also seem to think that's the main way to evaluate a player's worth to a team, and that you can ignore the fact that Rondo's contributions on offense dwarfs theirs. That's where you're wrong.


Well maybe if the offense wasn't designed around rondo dominating the ball 95percent of the time and people felt more involved then they wouldn't just stand around. I didn't IGNORE anything. I named the problems with this team. I didn't bring up rondos offensive numbers hence i don't think that's a huge problem with the team......... ::) All tho i do think rondo should score more.

  If you say Rondo and Pierce are the biggest problems on the team one would expect that you take their entire game into account. You also seem to think "lazy defense" is a HUGE problem but not standing around on offense. Why is that?

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #191 on: January 30, 2013, 12:16:22 PM »

Offline BballTim

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Regardless of how the Celtics offense looks, whether it craters to the worst in the league and becomes one of the most futile ever or not, their defense should improve a lot, more than enough to make up for any decline in the offense.  In the end, that's the only math that matters.

  Yeah, I guess if all those guys increase their effort on both ends of the court and not just on offense we'll see something of an improvement on defense.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #192 on: January 30, 2013, 12:21:49 PM »

Offline BballTim

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In 2008, when Rondo played off the ball about 100 percent more than he did the past three years, he stood in the corners more.  I re-watched the 2008 Finals and he was there a lot.  That minimized as much as possible how much Rondo's defender could roam and muck up the middle and post-ups.  Ever since Rondo became Rondo, the all-star and one of the best players in the league, his off the ball position has been on the wings or in the middle of the court.  I always thought that perhaps Rondo thought standing in the corner was a little beneath him.  Unsurprisingly, that's allowed his defender to easily choke off drives to the middle or post-ups to his side of the court.

  In 2008 Rondo used to stand near the endline when one of the big three had the ball and take that 10-12 foot baseline jumper when they passed him the ball. From what I've seen in his career he does a better job shooting the more "straight on" jumpers than the shots from the sides of the court. Could be just me though.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #193 on: January 30, 2013, 12:34:37 PM »

Offline BballTim

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Jason Terry alluded to some of the same issues, although more gently than Zach Lowe's quote about Lee:

Quote
“Don’t get me wrong,” he prefaced, “Rajon (Rondo) makes us the best we can possibly be.”

(You can just hear that BUT coming, can’t you?)

“But,” he continued, “now, having multiple ball-handlers out there, it’s just going to make us unpredictable. You don’t know who’s going to handle it. I think the wings are going to get out there and run a little harder. We should be able to play in transition a little more.”

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/blogs/courtsideview/x472365769/Celtics-practice-report-Jason-Terry-talks-candidly-about-life-after-Rajon-Rondo

I think it's fair to say that a lot of guys would like to play in a more open offensive system.

  It's fair to say that a lot of guys would like to take 20+ shots a game as well. That doesn't mean that would be best for the team. Terry even acknowledges that, although he'd like to have a bigger role in the offense, that having Rondo run the offense makes the team the best it can possibly be.

  By the way, from reading the article, how did you feel about the fairly clear inference in the article that at least some of the players were going to play harder and with more energy now? People here would be killing Rondo if he ever intimated something like that, now the players who haven't been putting in the effort get a pass because it's somehow Rondo's fault.

  By the way, I loved this quote:

“Now we really have to execute our game plan,” he said before Tuesday’s workout. “A lot of times Rajon was able to call his own game, and now we’ve really got to be in tune to what Doc’s saying in timeouts.

Great post. If Rondo ever said these things he would be run out of town on a rail. It makes me happy that these guys are going to really make an effort now, but guess what, their effort won't come near producing the results that Rondo does. Too bad they didn't play hard enough before Rondo got hurt.  ???

  Not only would Rondo get bashed for saying that, but he regularly gets attacked for not "bringing it" or playing with enough energy when those players stand around and the offense stagnates.

Re: Report: Lee unhappy in Boston due to Rondo's play style
« Reply #194 on: January 30, 2013, 12:37:42 PM »

Offline celtsfan84

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Jason Terry alluded to some of the same issues, although more gently than Zach Lowe's quote about Lee:

Quote
“Don’t get me wrong,” he prefaced, “Rajon (Rondo) makes us the best we can possibly be.”

(You can just hear that BUT coming, can’t you?)

“But,” he continued, “now, having multiple ball-handlers out there, it’s just going to make us unpredictable. You don’t know who’s going to handle it. I think the wings are going to get out there and run a little harder. We should be able to play in transition a little more.”

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/blogs/courtsideview/x472365769/Celtics-practice-report-Jason-Terry-talks-candidly-about-life-after-Rajon-Rondo

I think it's fair to say that a lot of guys would like to play in a more open offensive system.

  It's fair to say that a lot of guys would like to take 20+ shots a game as well. That doesn't mean that would be best for the team. Terry even acknowledges that, although he'd like to have a bigger role in the offense, that having Rondo run the offense makes the team the best it can possibly be.

  By the way, from reading the article, how did you feel about the fairly clear inference in the article that at least some of the players were going to play harder and with more energy now? People here would be killing Rondo if he ever intimated something like that, now the players who haven't been putting in the effort get a pass because it's somehow Rondo's fault.

  By the way, I loved this quote:

“Now we really have to execute our game plan,” he said before Tuesday’s workout. “A lot of times Rajon was able to call his own game, and now we’ve really got to be in tune to what Doc’s saying in timeouts.

Great post. If Rondo ever said these things he would be run out of town on a rail. It makes me happy that these guys are going to really make an effort now, but guess what, their effort won't come near producing the results that Rondo does. Too bad they didn't play hard enough before Rondo got hurt.  ???

  Not only would Rondo get bashed for saying that, but he regularly gets attacked for not "bringing it" or playing with enough energy when those players stand around and the offense stagnates.

That might be because you perpetuate the myth throughout the blog that he relaxes in the regular season and then morphs into a mythical superhero in the postseason.  Those that follow this myth must wonder why he doesn't morph into a superhero before the regular season begins and "bring it" every night.