Rondo is not the answer!

[LB3533]

I love Rondo, he's really picked up his play this season after a few stale games upon his contract signing.

But IMO, Rondo is not the answer!!!

I will preface that statement with the real questions here....


"Which Celtic needs to amp up their play?"

"Which Celtic has regressed this season?"

"Which Celtic is going to lead this team for the remainder of the season?"


All of those questions can be answered "Rondo is not the answer!!"

I think Rondo has done more than enough this season and no matter how much more he amps up his play, it will not help this team win the championship.

All season long there has been this unspoken disconnect between Rondo and the Big 3. Sure, they will all deny it, the team and the front officer will deny it, but it's there and it has been there for a while.

This season for me, the theme has been this premature transition from this team being the Big 3's team to this team being Rondo's team.

It's not Rondo's time yet.

The only way we win the title this year is if the Big 3 takes us to the promised land.

[Chris]

Well, I would agree to a point.  I would say that for this team to win a championship, Rondo is not going to carry them.  However, they cannot do it without him either.  I think the key to this teams success is going to be them learning how to integrate Rondo's strengths with the Big 3's. 

So far, that has not happened.  It has been one or the other.  Either Rondo has taken over the game, or they have gone back to the Big 3.  What they need to do is learn to play better together. 

The fact is, Rondo cannot win this on his own, because he is too easy for a great team to shut down if he is not shooting from the perimeter.  And none of the Big 3 have the ability to break down a defense and take over a game the way Rondo does anymore.  But together, they could be very hard to stop.

[Pucaccia]

I agree with you.  In 2008, it was clearly Kevin Garnetts team and his effort, leadership, and focus lead them to a championship. We need him to come back.  His injuries or whatever has made him inconsistent, hence the C's are inconsistent. If, or when he gets it back so will the Celtics.

[Greenbean]

Rondo is fast. The big 3 are slow.

Takes a while to figure out how to maximize abilities of all involved. In 2008, the big 3 were good enough to harness Rondo's speed and rely on the older guys to carry the load. We need a better balance of both styles of play now. It's not easy. TP to the OP.

[BudweiserCeltic]

As I've said before, I blame many of our current struggles on Rondo. But, I think he's playing better than last year overall, and I think once the playoffs come around he'll be the one to get the biggest boost of energy like we saw last year (until we played Orlando).

Since January, he's been playing a lot of minutes, minutes he hasn't been used to his whole career. At times he's visibly winded, so I think with our team getting healthy his minutes will normalize.

But, even so, he hasn't been consistently good throughout the whole game and it does affect our team a lot. At times he seems to be easily dominating teams just to throw a crapper for the rest of the game.

And just like last year, he played good defense during the early portion of the season just to get a bit "lazy" with it as the season went on culminating in a poor defensive effort during the playoffs, particularly Orlando.

Yep, he needs to step it up. He has too big of a role in our team.

Rondo is fast. The big 3 are slow.

Takes a while to figure out how to maximize abilities of all involved. In 2008, the big 3 were good enough to harness Rondo's speed and rely on the older guys to carry the load. We need a better balance of both styles of play now. It's not easy. TP to the OP.

I don't buy this excuse, just because even if they aren't catching up it forces the other team's defense to catch up to him, and we always have good trailers in Ray and Pierce, plus KG runs the floor well even with his current physical problems.

This is nothing new with Rondo.

[LB3533]

Doc Rivers has to take some of the blame for the failure to integrate Rondo's "emergence" with the Big 3's "decline".

Also, Danny has to take some blame for the inability to find a suitable back up PG for Rondo, thus making this team dependant on Rondo too much to be the "every down [minute] quarterback".

Tony Allen and Marquis Daniels are "stop gap" ball handlers, they are not backup PGs.

It might have been a better idea to go after the retired Eric Snow to be our backup PG...I don't even know if that was viable, but I am just throwing that kinda of direction out there.

The league right now as it is constituted, teams are dependent on premier PG's to run their offense or premiere wing players to get to the rim and make plays off of athletic ability.

So for the Celtics, if Rondo is not running our offense, it's Pierce "dominating the ball".

I would like to see Rondo continue his solid play, but in a way where it doesn't overshadow the Big 3's essence.

Likewise, the Big 3 can't drag Rondo along, they have to "hold hands" or something that Bill Russell was saying.

[Greenbean]

As I've said before, I blame many of our current struggles on Rondo. But, I think he's playing better than last year overall, and I think once the playoffs come around he'll be the one to get the biggest boost of energy like we saw last year (until we played Orlando).

Since January, he's been playing a lot of minutes, minutes he hasn't been used to his whole career. At times he's visibly winded, so I think with our team getting healthy his minutes will normalize.

But, even so, he hasn't been consistently good throughout the whole game and it does affect our team a lot. At times he seems to be easily dominating teams just to throw a crapper for the rest of the game.

And just like last year, he played good defense during the early portion of the season just to get a bit "lazy" with it as the season went on culminating in a poor defensive effort during the playoffs, particularly Orlando.

Yep, he needs to step it up. He has too big of a role in our team.

Rondo is fast. The big 3 are slow.

Takes a while to figure out how to maximize abilities of all involved. In 2008, the big 3 were good enough to harness Rondo's speed and rely on the older guys to carry the load. We need a better balance of both styles of play now. It's not easy. TP to the OP.

I don't buy this excuse, just because even if they aren't catching up it forces the other team's defense to catch up to him, and we always have good trailers in Ray and Pierce, plus KG runs the floor well even with his current physical problems.

This is nothing new with Rondo.

I think we agree but it's just not that obvious.

Rondo can certainly play a speed game with the big three on the court. It's just that he cant be a one man fastbreak throughout the whole game. There needs to be a better mix of Rondo really pushing the pace combined with slowing it down to get looks in the halfcourt for our hall of fame scorers.

Finding this balance has been difficult though and I have seen at our worst moments Rondo abandoning the "push" game for entire halfs. See the Cleveland game for a perfect example.

[SalmonAndMashedPotatoes]

Nice timing, OP.  Rondo's only had 7 straight double-doubles and just tied the team record for most consecutive games with 10+ assists. 

The problem on this team is that Pierce has been hurt, KG is still rounding into shape, and the first unit has no chemistry.  I don't see the logic in heaping blame on the ONE guy who is actually playing up to his potential.

[clover]

As I've said before, I blame many of our current struggles on Rondo. But, I think he's playing better than last year overall, and I think once the playoffs come around he'll be the one to get the biggest boost of energy like we saw last year (until we played Orlando).

Since January, he's been playing a lot of minutes, minutes he hasn't been used to his whole career. At times he's visibly winded, so I think with our team getting healthy his minutes will normalize.

But, even so, he hasn't been consistently good throughout the whole game and it does affect our team a lot. At times he seems to be easily dominating teams just to throw a crapper for the rest of the game.

And just like last year, he played good defense during the early portion of the season just to get a bit "lazy" with it as the season went on culminating in a poor defensive effort during the playoffs, particularly Orlando.

Yep, he needs to step it up. He has too big of a role in our team.

Rondo is fast. The big 3 are slow.

Takes a while to figure out how to maximize abilities of all involved. In 2008, the big 3 were good enough to harness Rondo's speed and rely on the older guys to carry the load. We need a better balance of both styles of play now. It's not easy. TP to the OP.

I don't buy this excuse, just because even if they aren't catching up it forces the other team's defense to catch up to him, and we always have good trailers in Ray and Pierce, plus KG runs the floor well even with his current physical problems.

This is nothing new with Rondo.

Rondo plays the toughest position, is already an All-Star and championship team starter, just turned 24 last week, has to manage a team of veterans, and consistency is the last thing to come.

Patience!

[ManUp]

I agree that Rondo isn't going to win us a championship as the top player on our team, not yet at least, but he's far from the problem on this team. The problem with this team is and has been the Big 3 + Sheed. People love to bring up Rondo's inconsistency, but he's been the only consistent starter all season. Ray is just now finding his jumper, KG is just now starting to produce(scorinng/rebounding) at a somewhat high level(still waiting on the amazing D), Rasheed's shooting % would have you think he's Monta Ellis and Pierce has only scored more than 15 once since dropping 35 in Atl. Rondo has been the only guy making anything happen, imo.

[RAcker]

To all of the above comments I will just add my 2 cents.  Last night I noticed something early in that game as we were building the lead up only to let it slip.  Rondo was the one that got us the lead and he's the one that started us down the path of losing the lead.

While he made some great plays putting heat on the Pistons with his penetration and defense (jumping lanes), he also had untimely turnovers trying to force passes, unnecessary shot attempts (jumpers) and allowed his man to blow by him on defense. 

To me, it seemed like as Rondo went, the Celtics went.  If we are going to depend on him alone, we are going to have severe ups and downs. Rondo is a great player and now an All-Star...however, this team cannot depend on him to carry us.  He does not have the offensive game to do that and his defense is based on a lot of gambling.  We need stability, and right now Rondo is not stable enough to ride to wins despite the impressive numbers.  It's not about impressive numbers, but about when those plays are made.

[Jeff]

if Rondo isn't the answer, the question is irrelevant

 

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[wdleehi]

Scali is the answer.



(at least to the question I just asked myself)

[RAcker]

if Rondo isn't the answer, the question is irrelevant

 

(sorry, couldn't resist)

Existentialism.  Nice.

[Birdbrain]

Rondo is great but, they need other people to step up.  I was hoping Rondo would play all 5 positions.

And no there is no problem with him and everyone else he is struggling trying to carry them on nightly basis.

Lucky the bench has been pretty consistent.