Rondo will always be our point guard...

[celts55]

Top 5 PG of all time???

That's a little early?

Uh yeah.

Magic
Stockton
Payton
Nash
CP3
Williams

are all ahead of him. That's just recent names!

Cosey
Oscar Robinson
Isiah
Walt Frazier

Shall we go on?

I think he'll pass Frazier pretty easily.

The same Frazier that was voted into the hall of fame in '87 and was name to the 50 greatest all time NBA players team in '96?
That's the Frazier he'll pass pretty easy?

[Levis107]

The only thing that bothers me is how convinced everyone is that Rondo will develop a consistent jumper.  How long has he been playing basketball again?  He's had time to work on a jumper...not sure if it will ever come.  Some guys just dont have it.

[Yakmanev]

It isn't really necessary that he have a jump shot. He shoots what? .508 from the field? I realize most of those are layups but as long as he is efficient with the shots he does take is the most important thing. (And from what I seen his jump shot seemed improved over the season before)

The point guards job is to run the offense and create opportunities. He does that just fine. Point guards who can shoot well tend to do so too much and it stagnates the offense.

It's best he work on his free throw shooting.

[BballTim]

The only thing that bothers me is how convinced everyone is that Rondo will develop a consistent jumper.  How long has he been playing basketball again?  He's had time to work on a jumper...not sure if it will ever come.  Some guys just dont have it.

  It might not ever come, but plenty of those great point guards listed (probably most, in fact) saw their shooting improve with age. I doubt Rondo's played so much more basketball than Kidd, Payton or Magic (for instance) that he wouldn't be able to improve like they did.

[Snakehead]

The only thing that bothers me is how convinced everyone is that Rondo will develop a consistent jumper.  How long has he been playing basketball again?  He's had time to work on a jumper...not sure if it will ever come.  Some guys just dont have it.

Like Tim says above, a lot have improved.  I'm not really convinced that much either, but I think he can and will improve his FT's at least.  If he does that I think he will be in a much better spot, with just that and no jumper.  He could be so much more aggressive going to the rim if he knew he could reliably go to the line and get points.

[Assassin70]

The only thing that bothers me is how convinced everyone is that Rondo will develop a consistent jumper.  How long has he been playing basketball again?  He's had time to work on a jumper...not sure if it will ever come.  Some guys just dont have it.

Like Tim says above, a lot have improved.  I'm not really convinced that much either, but I think he can and will improve his FT's at least.  If he does that I think he will be in a much better spot, with just that and no jumper.  He could be so much more aggressive going to the rim if he knew he could reliably go to the line and get points.

/cosign the FT are more important then the jumper.  The jumper will come and go anyways ask Ray Allen.

[Fafnir]

Top 5 PG of all time???

That's a little early?

Uh yeah.

Magic
Stockton
Payton
Nash
CP3
Williams

are all ahead of him. That's just recent names!

Cosey
Oscar Robinson
Isiah
Walt Frazier

Shall we go on?

I think he'll pass Frazier pretty easily.

The same Frazier that was voted into the hall of fame in '87 and was name to the 50 greatest all time NBA players team in '96?
That's the Frazier he'll pass pretty easy?

Yeah Frazier benefits greatly from the bias for scoring and New York Knicks players (in particular members of their two title teams).

[guava_wrench]

It isn't really necessary that he have a jump shot. He shoots what? .508 from the field? I realize most of those are layups but as long as he is efficient with the shots he does take is the most important thing. (And from what I seen his jump shot seemed improved over the season before)

The point guards job is to run the offense and create opportunities. He does that just fine. Point guards who can shoot well tend to do so too much and it stagnates the offense.

It's best he work on his free throw shooting.

The FG% is fool's gold. The lack of a jumper increases team turnovers and even his teammates shooting percentage because his defender wanders so far off of him on defense when Rondo doesn't have the ball.

His lack of a jumper also makes the pick and roll less effective since his man always goes under the pick. Think of how disastrous is was when we went under the pick against Orlando.

It does seem like the disregard defenders show for Rondo off the ball might be helping his offensive rebound numbers since his man is typically too far away to box out. This is hard to quantify though.

[BballTim]

It isn't really necessary that he have a jump shot. He shoots what? .508 from the field? I realize most of those are layups but as long as he is efficient with the shots he does take is the most important thing. (And from what I seen his jump shot seemed improved over the season before)

The point guards job is to run the offense and create opportunities. He does that just fine. Point guards who can shoot well tend to do so too much and it stagnates the offense.

It's best he work on his free throw shooting.

The FG% is fool's gold. The lack of a jumper increases team turnovers and even his teammates shooting percentage because his defender wanders so far off of him on defense when Rondo doesn't have the ball.

His lack of a jumper also makes the pick and roll less effective since his man always goes under the pick. Think of how disastrous is was when we went under the pick against Orlando.

It does seem like the disregard defenders show for Rondo off the ball might be helping his offensive rebound numbers since his man is typically too far away to box out. This is hard to quantify though.

  While they don't have player pair numbers for 2010, the Celts player pairs for both 2008 and 2009 are on 82games. All three of KG/PP/RA have better fg% and fewer turnovers with Rondo on the court than with him on the bench for both years. All of them have (generally significantly) lower fg% and (again generally significantly) more turnovers playing with Eddie than with Rondo. Do you have any stats to back up your claims?

  While I agree that it would benefit the offense if Rondo was a better outside shooter, we're one of the most efficient shooting teams every year and Rondo gets the other guys plenty of good, open shots in the half court sets.

[Fafnir]

They hypothetical "if Rondo could shoot" really can't be settled. We just have to hope someday he does develop a better shot so we have some data.

I personally believe we'd be a top 10 offensive team, even with the Big 3's decline.

[ManUp]

IMO, Rondo's lack of shooting only becomes an issue when he's playing against teams with great front-lines (LA, Orlando) or Athletic shot blockers(Orlando, Cleveland, ATL). The teams trouble with turnovers has nothing to do with Rondo and everything to do with Doc. The way we move the ball there are bound to be intercepted/bad passes and It doesn't help that we have turnover prone players (Pierce & Perk)and guys who struggle when they try to do too much (last year Ray, TA, BBD). As long as Doc has been with this team we've had issues with turnovers. Before the big three the excuse was we had young players who didn't know how to take care of the ball now we need a new scape goat.

They hypothetical "if Rondo could shoot" really can't be settled. We just have to hope someday he does develop a better shot so we have some data.

I personally believe we'd be a top 10 offensive team, even with the Big 3's decline.

Weren't we a top ten offense last year? Well at least for the first few months or so.

[Celtics/Run]

Rondo will be the next Jason Kidd.

[guava_wrench]

It isn't really necessary that he have a jump shot. He shoots what? .508 from the field? I realize most of those are layups but as long as he is efficient with the shots he does take is the most important thing. (And from what I seen his jump shot seemed improved over the season before)

The point guards job is to run the offense and create opportunities. He does that just fine. Point guards who can shoot well tend to do so too much and it stagnates the offense.

It's best he work on his free throw shooting.

The FG% is fool's gold. The lack of a jumper increases team turnovers and even his teammates shooting percentage because his defender wanders so far off of him on defense when Rondo doesn't have the ball.

His lack of a jumper also makes the pick and roll less effective since his man always goes under the pick. Think of how disastrous is was when we went under the pick against Orlando.

It does seem like the disregard defenders show for Rondo off the ball might be helping his offensive rebound numbers since his man is typically too far away to box out. This is hard to quantify though.

  While they don't have player pair numbers for 2010, the Celts player pairs for both 2008 and 2009 are on 82games. All three of KG/PP/RA have better fg% and fewer turnovers with Rondo on the court than with him on the bench for both years. All of them have (generally significantly) lower fg% and (again generally significantly) more turnovers playing with Eddie than with Rondo. Do you have any stats to back up your claims?

  While I agree that it would benefit the offense if Rondo was a better outside shooter, we're one of the most efficient shooting teams every year and Rondo gets the other guys plenty of good, open shots in the half court sets.

I never claimed that they would shoot lower with him on the court.

It is impossible to get stats for or against what I said because the only way we can do that is to compare Rondo with a jumper against Rondo without a jumper. Comparing Rondo on court versus Rondo off the court misses the point because there are way too many confounding variables, such as passing ability. We would expect more turnovers for Pierce and Ray playing with Eddie because they both have to handle the ball more frequently without a true PG on the floor.

[BballTim]

It isn't really necessary that he have a jump shot. He shoots what? .508 from the field? I realize most of those are layups but as long as he is efficient with the shots he does take is the most important thing. (And from what I seen his jump shot seemed improved over the season before)

The point guards job is to run the offense and create opportunities. He does that just fine. Point guards who can shoot well tend to do so too much and it stagnates the offense.

It's best he work on his free throw shooting.

The FG% is fool's gold. The lack of a jumper increases team turnovers and even his teammates shooting percentage because his defender wanders so far off of him on defense when Rondo doesn't have the ball.

His lack of a jumper also makes the pick and roll less effective since his man always goes under the pick. Think of how disastrous is was when we went under the pick against Orlando.

It does seem like the disregard defenders show for Rondo off the ball might be helping his offensive rebound numbers since his man is typically too far away to box out. This is hard to quantify though.

  While they don't have player pair numbers for 2010, the Celts player pairs for both 2008 and 2009 are on 82games. All three of KG/PP/RA have better fg% and fewer turnovers with Rondo on the court than with him on the bench for both years. All of them have (generally significantly) lower fg% and (again generally significantly) more turnovers playing with Eddie than with Rondo. Do you have any stats to back up your claims?

  While I agree that it would benefit the offense if Rondo was a better outside shooter, we're one of the most efficient shooting teams every year and Rondo gets the other guys plenty of good, open shots in the half court sets.

I never claimed that they would shoot lower with him on the court.

It is impossible to get stats for or against what I said because the only way we can do that is to compare Rondo with a jumper against Rondo without a jumper. Comparing Rondo on court versus Rondo off the court misses the point because there are way too many confounding variables, such as passing ability. We would expect more turnovers for Pierce and Ray playing with Eddie because they both have to handle the ball more frequently without a true PG on the floor.

  Sorry, I didn't understand what you meant by "The lack of a jumper increases team turnovers and even his teammates shooting percentage because his defender wanders so far off of him on defense when Rondo doesn't have the ball". Rondo's lack of a jump shot increasing the fg% of the others because his defender wanders so far off him on defense doesn't make sense so I assumed you meant the opposite.

[ManUp]

Rondo will be the next Jason Kidd.

I agree with this.

Don't think he'll ever be anywhere near the ft shooter though.