That's a good point, but on any good team you're going to have good shooters that open up the floor for you.  Rondo seemed to find his opportunities just fine when the team was without its best player.

At the same time, you could say that Rondo opens up the floor for other players, because of his ability to slash in the paint.  It goes both ways.

Also, to the other reply, I completely agree. Rondo wouldn't be close to the player he is now, if he didn't get the chance to start his career with three HOFs.  It definitely matured him as a player and kept him in line.  With his attitude, Rondo would probably be a distraction on a bad team.  But I'm just speaking stat-wise.

Any player is going to be better when playing on a team like this C's team.  Being surrounded by great players opens up the floor for everyone else, and spreads the focus of the other teams out.

The problem with Rondo is that he can be gameplanned out of games, regardless of who his teammates are.  If teams back way off him, and use his man to play the passing lanes, and not helping off the other perimeter players, it has been proven time and again that it takes Rondo out of what he wants to do, and makes him significantly less effective more times than not. 

Of course it does make it slightly harder to do this when all 4 of the other players on the floor can hit open shots, as well as move the ball quickly, but Rondo can still be a liability when teams defend him like this.

So until he becomes more proficient with the jumper, or consistently learns other ways to help his team when this happens (he has been better at points this year, by learning to find weaknesses in the zone, and basically becoming a roamer off the ball), he is not going to be able to take that next step, regardless of his teammates.

I haven't seen anybody suggest that Rondo's success is *solely* due to the "big three".  However, I do think that having elite teammates helps a player.

Well, it goes both ways.  The Big 3 also opens up a lot of opportunities for him offensively because they are all scoring threats.  With his lack of an outside shot he'd be really easy to gameplan for if he were our main scoring option.

I haven't seen anybody suggest that Rondo's success is *solely* due to the "big three".  However, I do think that having elite teammates helps a player.

Quote from: Roy Hobbs on December 11, 2009, 01:07:06 PM

I haven't seen anybody suggest that Rondo's success is *solely* due to the "big three".  However, I do think that having elite teammates helps a player.

  Of course nobody would say that Rondo's success is *solely* due to the big three. But I'd guess there's a pretty good split between people who think his numbers would improve without the big three and those who think he would be much less effective without them.