Rondo and Celtics now 2-0 on the PG Road Trip From Hell.

[cordobes]

Probley the same kind of evidance that would convince you you might not be 100% right about your eval of rondo either, that is to say, None.

I'm not right about what?

Till now, nobody has said where I'm wrong.

(but I know the answer: I simply wrote that Rondo has a very serious flaw, that impacts profoundly the game of the team and made fun of people who tried to minimize how bad is his jump-shot)

[cordobes]

These are pretty much my thoughts as well. I love Rondo's energy. I love that he seems to be able to get to the basket at will. I love when he gets his nose dirty fighting much larger players for rebounds. I love his quick hands and his knack for steals (although I wish he would concentrate on keeping his man in front of him). Those are all great things that should be praised.  
But it seems there are many people who totally overlook how the fact that other teams don't defend him affects his teammates.  It most certainly does. None of these things are going to show up in a box score against Rondo. Shot clock violations, three second calls, desperation shots, turnovers caused by instant double teams.
In Rondo's case his teammates happen to include three hall of fame players who can many times make something out of nothing.

Very well said, TP. I wonder if anyone is going to disagree with this.

[Toine43]

The funny thing is, after reading all of the back-and-forths in this thread, I still do not know what Cordobes' point is. So...Rondo's a very bad jumpshooter. Is that a negative for the team? Yes. Does it make life harder for Rondo's teammates? Yes. Would the Celtics be better if Rondo could shoot better? Yes.

Cordobes, I sense that your opinion of Rondo is lower than most others'. But you haven't told me anything I don't know about the kid and the team, so I don't even know why your opinion is what it is. That seems to be what is so frustrating to everyone who disagrees with you.

I'm sorry, but you disagree with me about what? To me, it seems you agree with everything I said.

It's truly fantastic that you accuse me because you can't disagree with anything I said. 

Hey, read my post again. I never said I personally disagreed with you. I think people were mostly just turned off by the tone of your posts.

[Toine43]

Every time this kind of posts start being made about Rondo, he enters a bad stretch of games. It's a variation of the "SI cover jinx" - he's just regressing to the mean.

I agree with Slugger: Rondo is still too wildly inconsistent and unreliable to be put on the top-tier class of PGs in the league. And if he was playing for a team where he was the best player or the 2nd best player, like many other top PGs are, I doubt people would see him as a future perennial AS.

Scratch that. It was actually your first post (above) that most people probably disagreed with the most, including me. I do think that Rondo is a top-tier pg, and that his play (as Nick detailed) has been consistent, at least since December.

To me, it's debatable whether Rondo is an elite pg. I have no problem with that point of yours. But you have to admit that Rondo as a whole has been consistent this year, even if his jumper hasn't been.

[winsomme]

  People go to extremes to "defend" the home players. Of course Rondo's deficiencies affect the team offensive production overall. The fact that Rondo can have excellent games and the team can win games and a NBA championship in spite of Rondo flaws doesn't make them less serious or diminishes their impact. It just shows how good is Rondo on other aspects of the game, how good are his teammates and how good is Doc as a coach. Just imagine how good would this team be if Rondo could hit open-shots and opponents were forced to defend him straight up.

This "we won a lot of games so whoever mentions flaws on the players/team is wrong" logic is truly amusing.

there are two different questions being mashed together here and causing some confusion IMO.

1. would the team be better if Rondo had a better jump shot?

2. is his lack of a good jump shot a huge detriment to the team?

clearly the answer to #1 is yes. as would the team be better if Perk had the low post game of Big Al....as would the team be better if a whole host of elements of the team were better.....also, might i add, true for every team in the NBA.

but #2 i think is the important question and the evidence so far is that it is not a huge detriment since we won a Title last season. Certainly it is to be determined for this season if it is a detriment, but there is evidence to suggest that it is not going to be so....

[Toine43]

  People go to extremes to "defend" the home players. Of course Rondo's deficiencies affect the team offensive production overall. The fact that Rondo can have excellent games and the team can win games and a NBA championship in spite of Rondo flaws doesn't make them less serious or diminishes their impact. It just shows how good is Rondo on other aspects of the game, how good are his teammates and how good is Doc as a coach. Just imagine how good would this team be if Rondo could hit open-shots and opponents were forced to defend him straight up.

This "we won a lot of games so whoever mentions flaws on the players/team is wrong" logic is truly amusing.

there are two different questions being mashed together here and causing some confusion IMO.

1. would the team be better if Rondo had a better jump shot?

2. is his lack of a good jump shot a huge detriment to the team?

clearly the answer to #1 is yes. as would the team be better if Perk had the low post game of Big Al....as would the team be better if a whole host of elements of the team were better.....also, might i add, true for every team in the NBA.

but #2 i think is the important question and the evidence so far is that it is not a huge detriment since we won a Title last season. Certainly it is to be determined for this season if it is a detriment, but there is evidence to suggest that it is not going to be so....

TP. That's a good way of organizing this discussion, and my thoughts on question number 2 are pretty much the same as yours.

[nickagneta]

I think many nationally, and maybe some here at Celticsblog, just don't get Rondo's game. He isn't a jump shooter.....yet! But he is a very efficient scorer. A FG% that is one of the highest of any guard in the league proves that. He can be deadly effective as a player, as a PG, as a team mate and as a facillitator without having a consistent jump shot. At this point in time, considering the personnel around him that can knock down outside shots(KG, Ray, Pierce, House and Baby, lately), there isn't a glaring need for him to be a good jump shooter.

Would it be nice? Sure. Is it necessary? Not one single bit!

Rondo has something that compensates for his lack of a jump shot and that is that he might be the fastest player on the planet while dribbling a basketball. From the two games games aginst Chris Paul it's clear even he can't keep Rondo in front of him. As long as he pushes the pace and doesn't give the defense time to set and get a good lag off of him, he is deadly with his speed, ball handling, and passing.

He's 22. He'll develop a jump shot. And when the Big Three are old or gone, I'm sure Rondo will be sticking that 18 footer with an above 40% consistency. But there's no need for that now. None. Even the LA Kobe lag off Rondo defense can't stop the Celtics. Does it slow them down if the pace gets to a crawl? Yes. But Doc is smart enough to know to push the pace and the ball against LA and if we see them again this year, it's not going to make a difference.

And if teams like Orlando, Atlanta, and Cleveland want to lag off of Rondo or switch their 2 guard to him to lag off, the Mo Williams/Ray Allen, Mike Bibby/Ray Allen and Anthony Johnson/Ray Allen matchups are ones that I am sure the Celtics will exploit to the tune of huge offense coming from Ray.

[cordobes]

The funny thing is, after reading all of the back-and-forths in this thread, I still do not know what Cordobes' point is. So...Rondo's a very bad jumpshooter. Is that a negative for the team? Yes. Does it make life harder for Rondo's teammates? Yes. Would the Celtics be better if Rondo could shoot better? Yes.

Cordobes, I sense that your opinion of Rondo is lower than most others'. But you haven't told me anything I don't know about the kid and the team, so I don't even know why your opinion is what it is. That seems to be what is so frustrating to everyone who disagrees with you.

I'm sorry, but you disagree with me about what? To me, it seems you agree with everything I said.

It's truly fantastic that you accuse me because you can't disagree with anything I said. 

Hey, read my post again. I never said I personally disagreed with you. I think people were mostly just turned off by the tone of your posts.

Sure, because I (and others, I basically repeated what Sluggers first said) mentioned that Rondo has flaws in his game and people here are so extremely homeristic that any criticism of Boston players makes them feel uncomfortable. I could have said absurd things - e.g. this would be a bottom 5 team in the league without Rondo, Rondo is that good! - and nobody would care. I wrote things that are true, yet negative, and people get frustrated.

The fact that you made a post saying that you agree with everything I said but you were frustrated with that is enough evidence.

What you call "the tone" of my posts is merely stating negative aspects about Rondo that are irrefutable. The funny thing is that if Rondo was playing for any other NBA team, people would be really quickly pointing out his flaws and how important they are.

[cordobes]

  People go to extremes to "defend" the home players. Of course Rondo's deficiencies affect the team offensive production overall. The fact that Rondo can have excellent games and the team can win games and a NBA championship in spite of Rondo flaws doesn't make them less serious or diminishes their impact. It just shows how good is Rondo on other aspects of the game, how good are his teammates and how good is Doc as a coach. Just imagine how good would this team be if Rondo could hit open-shots and opponents were forced to defend him straight up.

This "we won a lot of games so whoever mentions flaws on the players/team is wrong" logic is truly amusing.

there are two different questions being mashed together here and causing some confusion IMO.

1. would the team be better if Rondo had a better jump shot?

2. is his lack of a good jump shot a huge detriment to the team?

clearly the answer to #1 is yes. as would the team be better if Perk had the low post game of Big Al....as would the team be better if a whole host of elements of the team were better.....also, might i add, true for every team in the NBA.

but #2 i think is the important question and the evidence so far is that it is not a huge detriment since we won a Title last season. Certainly it is to be determined for this season if it is a detriment, but there is evidence to suggest that it is not going to be so....

I can't understand your point #2, maybe because I don't comprehend the correct meaning of the word detriment. This team won the title in spite of Rondo's lack of a serviceable jump-shot (and the qualifier "good" is misleading; I agree if all he missed was a good jump-shot there were less reasons to be worried).

It's not black and white: Rondo's flaws aren't big enough to make impossible to this team to win a title. He'd need to be a really bad point-guard, worse than Telfair or something of that kind. However, they're present and they affect the ability of the team. I'm absolutely sure that if Rondo could shoot the ball this team would have the better offence in the league, not merely a top-5 one.

[crownsy]

Probley the same kind of evidance that would convince you you might not be 100% right about your eval of rondo either, that is to say, None.

I'm not right about what?

Till now, nobody has said where I'm wrong.

(but I know the answer: I simply wrote that Rondo has a very serious flaw, that impacts profoundly the game of the team and made fun of people who tried to minimize how bad is his jump-shot)

come on cor, you've shot down 3 people who disagreed with you by dismissing thier arguments about rajon as uninformed, and when they disagree with your counter conclusions, you said you can't prove it with proof they accept, so they'll have tot ake your word for it.

I happen to agree with your assesment of rajon's jumper, but you, I, and the whole of the blog knows that no one on earth is going to change your eval of rondo, even if they had some sort of amazing smoking gun.



 

[winsomme]

  People go to extremes to "defend" the home players. Of course Rondo's deficiencies affect the team offensive production overall. The fact that Rondo can have excellent games and the team can win games and a NBA championship in spite of Rondo flaws doesn't make them less serious or diminishes their impact. It just shows how good is Rondo on other aspects of the game, how good are his teammates and how good is Doc as a coach. Just imagine how good would this team be if Rondo could hit open-shots and opponents were forced to defend him straight up.

This "we won a lot of games so whoever mentions flaws on the players/team is wrong" logic is truly amusing.

there are two different questions being mashed together here and causing some confusion IMO.

1. would the team be better if Rondo had a better jump shot?

2. is his lack of a good jump shot a huge detriment to the team?

clearly the answer to #1 is yes. as would the team be better if Perk had the low post game of Big Al....as would the team be better if a whole host of elements of the team were better.....also, might i add, true for every team in the NBA.

but #2 i think is the important question and the evidence so far is that it is not a huge detriment since we won a Title last season. Certainly it is to be determined for this season if it is a detriment, but there is evidence to suggest that it is not going to be so....

I can't understand your point #2, maybe because I don't comprehend the correct meaning of the word detriment. This team won the title in spite of Rondo's lack of a serviceable jump-shot (and the qualifier "good" is misleading; I agree if all he missed was a good jump-shot there were less reasons to be worried).

It's not black and white: Rondo's flaws aren't big enough to make impossible to this team to win a title. He'd need to be a really bad point-guard, worse than Telfair or something of that kind. However, they're present and they affect the ability of the team. I'm absolutely sure that if Rondo could shoot the ball this team would have the better offence in the league, not merely a top-5 one.

again, you are IMO combing two different questions....

They may be winning in spite of his jump shooting from a certain perspective, but they are also winning because of his PG skills looking from another....

if Rondo was only a negative to the team then i might agree with the point you are making. but the truth is, Rondo has huge positives that along with his negatives....

so the only question to answer is: what is the impact that he has as a complete player (pluses and minuses) and that I would argue at the very very least, he is not a detriment to the team.

and that is a different question than whether or not the team would be better is certain aspects of his game were better....

[cordobes]

Probley the same kind of evidance that would convince you you might not be 100% right about your eval of rondo either, that is to say, None.

I'm not right about what?

Till now, nobody has said where I'm wrong.

(but I know the answer: I simply wrote that Rondo has a very serious flaw, that impacts profoundly the game of the team and made fun of people who tried to minimize how bad is his jump-shot)

come on cor, you've shot down 3 people who disagreed with you by dismissing thier arguments about rajon as uninformed, and when they disagree with your counter conclusions, you said you can't prove it with proof they accept, so they'll have tot ake your word for it.

I happen to agree with your assesment of rajon's jumper, but you, I, and the whole of the blog knows that no one on earth is going to change your eval of rondo, even if they had some sort of amazing smoking gun.

I have no idea about what are you talking about. Who exactly I dismissed as uninformed? I just said that the "oh, LeBron James isn't a great jump-shooter either" argument is extremely weak and I proved why.

What's wrong with my evaluation of Rondo? You still haven't explained that. What part of my evaluation of Rondo is incorrect?

[cordobes]

so the only question to answer is: what is the impact that he has as a complete player (pluses and minuses) and that I would argue at the very very least, he is not a detriment to the team.

and that is a different question than whether or not the team would be better is certain aspects of his game were better....

Sure, but no one in this entire thread said Rondo was a net negative to the team. I don't know anyone who thinks that way, even fans from other teams, so I believe the question you brought up to the debate is kind of useless.

[winsomme]

so the only question to answer is: what is the impact that he has as a complete player (pluses and minuses) and that I would argue at the very very least, he is not a detriment to the team.

and that is a different question than whether or not the team would be better is certain aspects of his game were better....

Sure, but no one in this entire thread said Rondo was a net negative to the team. I don't know anyone who thinks that way, even fans from other teams, so I believe the question you brought up to the debate is kind of useless.

i'm just responding to the point you made about the team winning in spite of Rondo's shooting....

that observation would only be significant if Rondo didn't do other things exceptionally well and wasn't contributing to winning in other ways....

if you acknowledge that Rondo is a net positive, then i think you have answered whether or not he is a detriment to the team or not...

whether or not the team would be better if he was a better shooter is an entirely different question with an obvious "yes" answer....

other than noting that the team would be better, i'm not sure what else you can get out of that fact....

[winsomme]

who is arguing that the team wouldn't be better if Rondo was a better shooter?