Are we really better w/o Rondo or will his return vault us back to eliteness?

[SHAQATTACK]

 Bandwagon or no Bandwagon..This train is ready to pull out of town ...and Rondo an't on it..

[ms.ball]

Wow, just wow.
Guys first game back, and he loses an eye, whilst playing with one arm, and he's being put out to dry.

I guess people will be back on the bandwagon when he's getting 15 assists, 8 rebounds and 15 points when we beat real contenders.

I'm simply amazed at how quickly people can jump to conclusions about players over such small sample sizes.

2 weeks ago it was 'Pierce is done, KG is cooked, Rondo is our only good player left'.
And now it's the exact opposite.
The negativity towards these players that give their heart and soul to us fans every night is just mind boggling.

To the one guy who describ :'(ed Rondos 'selfish high bounce act at the start of the game', do you understand that he is moving slowly to set the pace of the game in the Celtics favor? Doc tells him to slow down at the start to set the tempo of the game in our favor.
Ever noticed how Moore, Bradley and Pierce all do the same thing by bringing it up at a snails pace?
Just unreal.

agreed, the negativity this year on the blog has made reading it / logging on now that interesting , less discussion on the team

Don't confuse enthusiasm for young guys and recognizing reality about the flaws of the old guys as negativity.

Or the real reality that people are so focussed on the old guy flaws, they are willing to over look the young guys flaw.

[MVP]

The Rondo hate it laughable. Probably the same people who were ready to trade Pierce and KG for late 1st round picks a couple of weeks ago.

[cman88]

The Rondo hate it laughable. Probably the same people who were ready to trade Pierce and KG for late 1st round picks a couple of weeks ago.

welcome to celtics blog where it is "what have you done for me lately"

Rondo will be fine, and if he returns playing to the form he did before the wrist injury we will be a tough,tough team because he was putting it all out there offensively

[Roy H.]

I think there's a legit argument that Rondo at times holds (or pounds) the ball too long, and that Pierce / KG don't initiate enough offense when he's in the game.  It would be interesting to look at this not only statistically, but by actually breaking down game film from games where Rondo looks aggressive, versus those games where he isn't penetrating as much.

The solution to any offensive deficiency we might have with Rondo in there, though, would be to adjust the offense a bit when he's in there, rather than to scrap Rondo.  Rondo is capable of doing everything Bradley does, plus obviously a lot more.

[Celtics4ever]

That isn't all on Rondo.  Then they need to create their own shots when he is in the game and not rely on him to create shots.

KG seemed pretty on last night though and PP was on fire.

Don't confuse enthusiasm for young guys and recognizing reality about the flaws of the old guys as negativity.

I think a real fan is negative once in a while.   There is nothing wrong with noting deficiencies of a player or team.  The trouble I have with the young guys is too many fellows are " the grass is greener type".   They don't note stuff like Bradley can't shoot and is a worse shooter than Rajon or he only averages 1 APG and some change.  Everyone knows he can play D unless the guy is athletic and has a handle but few acknowledge his weaknesses and the reality of his game and it's  limitations.

No player is ever perfect.   I think Rondo is less flawed than Avery.  Defense is half the game and it can have an impact but a 15/10 guy holds up his half better on the other end than a 4/1 guy.  Guys here don't seem to realize this fact.

The solution to any offensive deficiency we might have with Rondo in there, though, would be to adjust the offense a bit when he's in there, rather than to scrap Rondo.  Rondo is capable of doing everything Bradley does, plus obviously a lot more.

100% Agree. The grass is not greener in this case.

[nicknorman]

You ask every coach in the league and every player they would all take playing with a healthy Rondo over AB.  Not to knock Bradley, he's coming along fast, but Rondo is just on a different level of skill.

[hwangjini_1]

You ask every coach in the league and every player they would all take playing with a healthy Rondo over AB.  Not to knock Bradley, he's coming along fast, but Rondo is just on a different level of skill.

good point. i have a supporter of AB for a while. (please note: i did not spell "supporter" as d-e-l-u-s-i-o-n-a-l")

but watching rondo pass last night showed me how good a passer rondo is, and how far AB has to go as a passer.

celtics are better with rondo back. but i think also that they are better by having AB play some as well.

[mqtcelticsfan]

I think it'd be really interesting to go back and see what most of the people thought about Rondo and Bradley a month ago, then see which people have completely gone the other way. I remember people saying they thought Rondo was a top 10 player in the NBA for sure and that Bradley should be cut. I'd put money on some of those people saying we should trade Rondo for peanuts and start Bradley now.

[Kuberski1]

Watching the Spurs for the first time this year against the Thunder.  Impressive (Perk on the other hand a no-show...I really wonder if he completely recovered from the injury...).

Pop really seems to have found ways to get the right guys into the right situations.  TD is no longer dominant, RJ won't live up to what they wanted, Manu is just not going to be able to play a lot....but guys like Leonard, Green, Bonner, Splitter - not exactly household names, play important roles, and play well within the schemes they run.

I think it's relevant for the Cs situation, including Rondo/AB.  Rondo clearly the better player, but with the recent time AB got, the team learned to play with him, work around his offensive inefficiencies, and play well.  I believe it's really on Doc and the staff to figure out not only who plays when, but the style of play that works for different groupings.  That the  offense stagnates when Rondo is out there should not be all on Rondo...they need to work this out, e.g. why can't the offense, especially half-court sets sometimes go through Pierce even with Rondo at point?  They can, and should be able to figure this out....

[BudweiserCeltic]

I think this is an overreaction at the moment, sadly many of the things that have infuriated some of us from Rondo was in full display the other night. Regardless, it was clear that Rondo wasn't 100%, he couldn't even catch passes properly and I thought he had made some very good strides earlier in the season. My problem with him is that he keeps showing me some brilliant stretches just to regress back to the norm and I just don't trust him to be consistently good, particularly running the offense as it should. But we'll see.

When Rondo is doing his job properly, our team plays better than any other time.