Rondo making a late case for MVP?

[dysgenic]

Rondo hasn't even played like a top 10 point guard this year, never mind a top 10 MVP. Imagine if Paul Pierce, in his prime, got the kind of mainstream appeal Rondo gets.

Seriously?  He's led the league in Assists for almost the entire season, and has been near the top of the league in Steals all season, and you don't think he's a Top 10 PG?

I'd like to hear the 10 Point Guards that are better than Rondo.

Currently, Nash, Rose, Wall, Westbrook, Paul, Williams, Parker, and Kidd are all better than Rondo. I think Rondo belongs in the tier with Jennings and Curry.

There is no way Rondo is in the same league as Jennings and Curry. Leading the league in assists and steals during the season makes him an elite point guard.
This blog is absurd sometimes.

Why does leading in assists and steals have to make him an "elite" point guard? He is also the worst free throw shooter, the leader in turnovers, not a threat shooting the ball, and has seen his stats decrease from last year in many important areas besides assists. There's more to the game than getting assists and steals. Curry is a very complete player, Rondo is not.

He's not leading the league in Turnovers?

You're right, and it's not even close.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/turnovers/sort/turnovers/order/false

And it's been mentioned before, but seems like it's worth saying again:

(1) Total turnovers are not only no indication of being bad, they are a very good measure of being good. If you construct a team made up of the top 12 players ranked by total TOs, it is this:

Westbrook
Howard
Lebron
Rose
Nash
Ellis
Cousins
Stoudemire
Wade
Wall
DWill
Kobe.

In other words, it's a PG-heavy version of the Olympic team. (Rondo is 13th, so even here he is the last cut, heh.)

And (2), among the league leaders in TOs, Rondo has the best Assist to TO ratio. Only CP, Calderon and Kidd are better.

You can hold things against Rondo. But turnovers, particularly total turnovers, are not one of them.

I think the thing that rankles some fans about the turnovers is that he appears to the naked eye to often be careless with the ball, either by not paying attention or trying to make a flashy play when it's not called for.  For myself, what annoys me is that he is such a talented ballhandler.  He's good enough to turn the ball over less.

That being said, I find it pretty ridiculous that some are saying Westbrook is a better player than Rondo.  If Westbrook were playing in Boston, I guarantee this board would HATE him.  He is more of a tweener guard than a PG, he makes dumb decisions constantly.
Nash- can't play on the defensive end, next.
Kidd- maybe 10 years ago, not now (36%!).  Next.
Wall- c'mon now. Next.

I would rather have CP3, Rose, and Parker than Rondo, that's it.  I would take Rondo over Williams.

[KungPoweChicken]

Rondo hasn't even played like a top 10 point guard this year, never mind a top 10 MVP. Imagine if Paul Pierce, in his prime, got the kind of mainstream appeal Rondo gets.

Seriously?  He's led the league in Assists for almost the entire season, and has been near the top of the league in Steals all season, and you don't think he's a Top 10 PG?

I'd like to hear the 10 Point Guards that are better than Rondo.

Currently, Nash, Rose, Wall, Westbrook, Paul, Williams, Parker, and Kidd are all better than Rondo. I think Rondo belongs in the tier with Jennings and Curry.

There is no way Rondo is in the same league as Jennings and Curry. Leading the league in assists and steals during the season makes him an elite point guard.
This blog is absurd sometimes.

Why does leading in assists and steals have to make him an "elite" point guard? He is also the worst free throw shooter, the leader in turnovers, not a threat shooting the ball, and has seen his stats decrease from last year in many important areas besides assists. There's more to the game than getting assists and steals. Curry is a very complete player, Rondo is not.

  Curry can't pass or handle the ball as well, rebound as well or defend as well as Rondo. Sounds "very complete".

Curry handles the ball and passes fine. What are you basing, "He can't handle the ball from?" Sounds like a very subjective claim based on nothing to strengthen your argument. Curry is also the best shooting point guard in the league, if not the best shooter period. Rondo is not a good/great defender. He doesn't keep his man in front of him. Delonte does a much better job of keeping his man in front of him than Rondo. Curry is a very capable defender playing on a team whose philosophy is to play no defense. In short, I'd rather have Curry playing point guard for this team than Rondo.

[18isGREATERthan72]

Rondo hasn't even played like a top 10 point guard this year, never mind a top 10 MVP. Imagine if Paul Pierce, in his prime, got the kind of mainstream appeal Rondo gets.

Seriously?  He's led the league in Assists for almost the entire season, and has been near the top of the league in Steals all season, and you don't think he's a Top 10 PG?

I'd like to hear the 10 Point Guards that are better than Rondo.

Currently, Nash, Rose, Wall, Westbrook, Paul, Williams, Parker, and Kidd are all better than Rondo. I think Rondo belongs in the tier with Jennings and Curry.

There is no way Rondo is in the same league as Jennings and Curry. Leading the league in assists and steals during the season makes him an elite point guard.
This blog is absurd sometimes.

Why does leading in assists and steals have to make him an "elite" point guard? He is also the worst free throw shooter, the leader in turnovers, not a threat shooting the ball, and has seen his stats decrease from last year in many important areas besides assists. There's more to the game than getting assists and steals. Curry is a very complete player, Rondo is not.

  Curry can't pass or handle the ball as well, rebound as well or defend as well as Rondo. Sounds "very complete".

Curry handles the ball and passes fine. What are you basing, "He can't handle the ball from?" Sounds like a very subjective claim based on nothing to strengthen your argument. Curry is also the best shooting point guard in the league, if not the best shooter period. Rondo is not a good/great defender. He doesn't keep his man in front of him. Delonte does a much better job of keeping his man in front of him than Rondo. Curry is a very capable defender playing on a team whose philosophy is to play no defense. In short, I'd rather have Curry playing point guard for this team than Rondo.

It's strange how people look at it as Rondo keeping a man in front of him... He gambles for the steal a lot, but he also keeps his man in front of him a lot.  Watch OTHER PG's around the league, and you'll see that although Rondo gambles, he is just as good at staying in front of his man as anyone else, if not better.  Unlike the other PG's though, Rondo has the ability to get the reach around steal if he DOES get beat.  Most of the time, PG's that get beat end up trying to get back in front of their man when it's to late, and end up fouling or something else.  Rondo goes for the reach around steal which he is pretty good at not fouling on, so there is a chance to force a turnover, then he knows to make the rotation defensively.  Also, just take a look at player averages when they play against Rondo compared to their season averages.  Rondo cuts down their production across the board.

People see Rondo get lit up by PG's on occasion, and think he is an overrated defender.  Perkins, who many feel is one of the best post defenders in the league, regularly gets lit up by Andrew Bogut, and Brook Lopez.

[mc34]

I understand some of the gripes about Rondo's free throw shooting and sometimes gambling on defense... But tell me, how many other point guards in the league could make these kinds of passes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNobwOSvzY4&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Zl59VHRGk&feature=youtu.be

[18isGREATERthan72]

I understand some of the gripes about Rondo's free throw shooting and sometimes gambling on defense... But tell me, how many other point guards in the league could make these kinds of passes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNobwOSvzY4&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Zl59VHRGk&feature=youtu.be

Indeed... I think those were back to back possessions too.  I'd like to see how many players can make that pass once, let alone twice, one right after the other.

[achen719]

the only thing worst than the thread topic is the argument that Rondo isn't a top 10 point guard.

the guy who said this can't even list ten point guards better than Rondo and a couple of the eight or whatever point guards he listed are very questionable choices.

not to mention the fact that he actually put Jennings and Curry in the same category.  Curry is significantly better than Jennings whose entire hype as a player is based on that one 55-point game that had C.J. Watson going under every single screen after every single jumpshot.

c'mon now stop with the over the top pessimism and negativity.

[BballTim]

Rondo hasn't even played like a top 10 point guard this year, never mind a top 10 MVP. Imagine if Paul Pierce, in his prime, got the kind of mainstream appeal Rondo gets.

Seriously?  He's led the league in Assists for almost the entire season, and has been near the top of the league in Steals all season, and you don't think he's a Top 10 PG?

I'd like to hear the 10 Point Guards that are better than Rondo.

Currently, Nash, Rose, Wall, Westbrook, Paul, Williams, Parker, and Kidd are all better than Rondo. I think Rondo belongs in the tier with Jennings and Curry.

There is no way Rondo is in the same league as Jennings and Curry. Leading the league in assists and steals during the season makes him an elite point guard.
This blog is absurd sometimes.

Why does leading in assists and steals have to make him an "elite" point guard? He is also the worst free throw shooter, the leader in turnovers, not a threat shooting the ball, and has seen his stats decrease from last year in many important areas besides assists. There's more to the game than getting assists and steals. Curry is a very complete player, Rondo is not.

  Curry can't pass or handle the ball as well, rebound as well or defend as well as Rondo. Sounds "very complete".

Curry handles the ball and passes fine. What are you basing, "He can't handle the ball from?" Sounds like a very subjective claim based on nothing to strengthen your argument. Curry is also the best shooting point guard in the league, if not the best shooter period. Rondo is not a good/great defender. He doesn't keep his man in front of him. Delonte does a much better job of keeping his man in front of him than Rondo. Curry is a very capable defender playing on a team whose philosophy is to play no defense. In short, I'd rather have Curry playing point guard for this team than Rondo.

  Honestly, you claim that handling the ball and passing are subjective and then you go into Rondo's defense? Haha. Curry has more ballhandling turnovers than Rondo even though he probably handles the ball much less with Ellis on the team. Rondo's assist/bad pass ratio is over 50% higher than Curry's.

  And aside from making the last two all defense teams Rondo' opponents have a lower PER, lower eFG%, score fewer points, take fewer free throws, get fewer rebounds and fewer assists than Curry's opponents. So the stats back up all of my "subjective" claims and none of yours. You're right about the shooting though, but that seems to be the only phase of their games that you're able to tell who's better and who's worse. It's no surprise that you'd rather have Curry running the Celts.

[Cman]

I understand some of the gripes about Rondo's free throw shooting and sometimes gambling on defense... But tell me, how many other point guards in the league could make these kinds of passes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNobwOSvzY4&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Zl59VHRGk&feature=youtu.be

Those are some real nice plays. 
The thing that is most surprising about the videos?  The blase attitude of the Garden crowd... come on people!

[Rondo9dunx]

was a beautiful pass, and i'm a huge rondo fan.. but plenty of guys could have and in fact have in the past made those types of passes. You aren't going to tell me a guy should be MVP because the video's of him on youtube are all awesome right?


MVP is not the kind of thing you can earn scoring less than 15-19 points a game, regardless of how many assists or steals you have. Rondo is a beast and I love him, I still think he's one of the best PGs in the league, but he is one of the worst free throw shooters out there. His jumper really hasnt improved enough to the point where he's scoring more. Maybe his % has gone up a little bit, but he's still not a threat to score from outside. If rondo could average 18pts on 50% fg shooting with 75%+ FT shooting, 12 assists and 3 steals a game you could call him MVP, but not with the stats he's putting up now. I know it's not "all" about stats, but they do have something to do with it.

[BballTim]

was a beautiful pass, and i'm a huge rondo fan.. but plenty of guys could have and in fact have in the past made those types of passes. You aren't going to tell me a guy should be MVP because the video's of him on youtube are all awesome right?

  Did anyone say that, or anything like it?

[KungPoweChicken]

Rondo hasn't even played like a top 10 point guard this year, never mind a top 10 MVP. Imagine if Paul Pierce, in his prime, got the kind of mainstream appeal Rondo gets.

Seriously?  He's led the league in Assists for almost the entire season, and has been near the top of the league in Steals all season, and you don't think he's a Top 10 PG?

I'd like to hear the 10 Point Guards that are better than Rondo.

Currently, Nash, Rose, Wall, Westbrook, Paul, Williams, Parker, and Kidd are all better than Rondo. I think Rondo belongs in the tier with Jennings and Curry.

There is no way Rondo is in the same league as Jennings and Curry. Leading the league in assists and steals during the season makes him an elite point guard.
This blog is absurd sometimes.

Why does leading in assists and steals have to make him an "elite" point guard? He is also the worst free throw shooter, the leader in turnovers, not a threat shooting the ball, and has seen his stats decrease from last year in many important areas besides assists. There's more to the game than getting assists and steals. Curry is a very complete player, Rondo is not.

  Curry can't pass or handle the ball as well, rebound as well or defend as well as Rondo. Sounds "very complete".

Curry handles the ball and passes fine. What are you basing, "He can't handle the ball from?" Sounds like a very subjective claim based on nothing to strengthen your argument. Curry is also the best shooting point guard in the league, if not the best shooter period. Rondo is not a good/great defender. He doesn't keep his man in front of him. Delonte does a much better job of keeping his man in front of him than Rondo. Curry is a very capable defender playing on a team whose philosophy is to play no defense. In short, I'd rather have Curry playing point guard for this team than Rondo.

  Honestly, you claim that handling the ball and passing are subjective and then you go into Rondo's defense? Haha. Curry has more ballhandling turnovers than Rondo even though he probably handles the ball much less with Ellis on the team. Rondo's assist/bad pass ratio is over 50% higher than Curry's.

  And aside from making the last two all defense teams Rondo' opponents have a lower PER, lower eFG%, score fewer points, take fewer free throws, get fewer rebounds and fewer assists than Curry's opponents. So the stats back up all of my "subjective" claims and none of yours. You're right about the shooting though, but that seems to be the only phase of their games that you're able to tell who's better and who's worse. It's no surprise that you'd rather have Curry running the Celts.

The Warriors are second worst in the league in opponents points per game. The Celtics are the best. I don't understand your argument. Defense is dependent upon the team. Have you never heard of "team defense"? The Warriors are also rank 5th in pace, so they are going to score a lot and give up a lot of points. The Celtics are near the bottom when it comes to pace.





And I said, your claim about Curry's BALL HANDLING was subjective, not the defense.


And if Rondo averaged anything less than 11 assists playing with four future hall of famers, then something would be wrong.

[18isGREATERthan72]

Rondo hasn't even played like a top 10 point guard this year, never mind a top 10 MVP. Imagine if Paul Pierce, in his prime, got the kind of mainstream appeal Rondo gets.

Seriously?  He's led the league in Assists for almost the entire season, and has been near the top of the league in Steals all season, and you don't think he's a Top 10 PG?

I'd like to hear the 10 Point Guards that are better than Rondo.

Currently, Nash, Rose, Wall, Westbrook, Paul, Williams, Parker, and Kidd are all better than Rondo. I think Rondo belongs in the tier with Jennings and Curry.

There is no way Rondo is in the same league as Jennings and Curry. Leading the league in assists and steals during the season makes him an elite point guard.
This blog is absurd sometimes.

Why does leading in assists and steals have to make him an "elite" point guard? He is also the worst free throw shooter, the leader in turnovers, not a threat shooting the ball, and has seen his stats decrease from last year in many important areas besides assists. There's more to the game than getting assists and steals. Curry is a very complete player, Rondo is not.

  Curry can't pass or handle the ball as well, rebound as well or defend as well as Rondo. Sounds "very complete".

Curry handles the ball and passes fine. What are you basing, "He can't handle the ball from?" Sounds like a very subjective claim based on nothing to strengthen your argument. Curry is also the best shooting point guard in the league, if not the best shooter period. Rondo is not a good/great defender. He doesn't keep his man in front of him. Delonte does a much better job of keeping his man in front of him than Rondo. Curry is a very capable defender playing on a team whose philosophy is to play no defense. In short, I'd rather have Curry playing point guard for this team than Rondo.

  Honestly, you claim that handling the ball and passing are subjective and then you go into Rondo's defense? Haha. Curry has more ballhandling turnovers than Rondo even though he probably handles the ball much less with Ellis on the team. Rondo's assist/bad pass ratio is over 50% higher than Curry's.

  And aside from making the last two all defense teams Rondo' opponents have a lower PER, lower eFG%, score fewer points, take fewer free throws, get fewer rebounds and fewer assists than Curry's opponents. So the stats back up all of my "subjective" claims and none of yours. You're right about the shooting though, but that seems to be the only phase of their games that you're able to tell who's better and who's worse. It's no surprise that you'd rather have Curry running the Celts.

The Warriors are second worst in the league in opponents points per game. The Celtics are the best. I don't understand your argument. Defense is dependent upon the team. Have you never heard of "team defense"? The Warriors are also rank 5th in pace, so they are going to score a lot and give up a lot of points. The Celtics are near the bottom when it comes to pace.





And I said, your claim about Curry's BALL HANDLING was subjective, not the defense.


And if Rondo averaged anything less than 11 assists playing with four future hall of famers, then something would be wrong.

Rondo was a better defender than West back before the acquisition of the Big 3.  He was better at holding opponents eFG%, Assists, TO's, Scoring, and Rebounds below their season average.

[BballTim]

Rondo hasn't even played like a top 10 point guard this year, never mind a top 10 MVP. Imagine if Paul Pierce, in his prime, got the kind of mainstream appeal Rondo gets.

Seriously?  He's led the league in Assists for almost the entire season, and has been near the top of the league in Steals all season, and you don't think he's a Top 10 PG?

I'd like to hear the 10 Point Guards that are better than Rondo.

Currently, Nash, Rose, Wall, Westbrook, Paul, Williams, Parker, and Kidd are all better than Rondo. I think Rondo belongs in the tier with Jennings and Curry.

There is no way Rondo is in the same league as Jennings and Curry. Leading the league in assists and steals during the season makes him an elite point guard.
This blog is absurd sometimes.

Why does leading in assists and steals have to make him an "elite" point guard? He is also the worst free throw shooter, the leader in turnovers, not a threat shooting the ball, and has seen his stats decrease from last year in many important areas besides assists. There's more to the game than getting assists and steals. Curry is a very complete player, Rondo is not.

  Curry can't pass or handle the ball as well, rebound as well or defend as well as Rondo. Sounds "very complete".

Curry handles the ball and passes fine. What are you basing, "He can't handle the ball from?" Sounds like a very subjective claim based on nothing to strengthen your argument. Curry is also the best shooting point guard in the league, if not the best shooter period. Rondo is not a good/great defender. He doesn't keep his man in front of him. Delonte does a much better job of keeping his man in front of him than Rondo. Curry is a very capable defender playing on a team whose philosophy is to play no defense. In short, I'd rather have Curry playing point guard for this team than Rondo.

  Honestly, you claim that handling the ball and passing are subjective and then you go into Rondo's defense? Haha. Curry has more ballhandling turnovers than Rondo even though he probably handles the ball much less with Ellis on the team. Rondo's assist/bad pass ratio is over 50% higher than Curry's.

  And aside from making the last two all defense teams Rondo' opponents have a lower PER, lower eFG%, score fewer points, take fewer free throws, get fewer rebounds and fewer assists than Curry's opponents. So the stats back up all of my "subjective" claims and none of yours. You're right about the shooting though, but that seems to be the only phase of their games that you're able to tell who's better and who's worse. It's no surprise that you'd rather have Curry running the Celts.

The Warriors are second worst in the league in opponents points per game. The Celtics are the best. I don't understand your argument. Defense is dependent upon the team. Have you never heard of "team defense"? The Warriors are also rank 5th in pace, so they are going to score a lot and give up a lot of points. The Celtics are near the bottom when it comes to pace.





And I said, your claim about Curry's BALL HANDLING was subjective, not the defense.


And if Rondo averaged anything less than 11 assists playing with four future hall of famers, then something would be wrong.

  Curry's defensive numbers are for the most part worse than Rondo's were in his rookie year when he was on the second worst team in the league.

  And how many people have ever averaged 11 assists playing with 3-4 future HOF players? You must be able to name quite a few if something's wrong when it *doesn't* happen.

  And, yes, I saw what you said about BALL HANDLING. But is it really that subjective if Rondo handles the ball more and has fewer turnovers? You've termed Rondo's turnover rate "alarming". Curry has more ballhandling turnovers and his passes are much more likely to end up as turnovers. How would you describe Curry's turnover issues? Truly frightening? Shockingly high? Or, more likely, not an issue because he "handles the ball and passes fine".

[Who]

I think Steph Curry is an underrated player.

Monta Ellis' presence on that team is holding him back. Ellis dominates the ball too much ... relegates Curry to a smaller role than he should have (as a passer/playmaker rather than more scoring).

I think Curry would be an 8-9 assist guy ... and possibly 10+ assist guy down the road ... on a team that better took advantage of his passing skills. A very impressive passer. Good vision, good decision, excellent range of passing.

Not as good a passer as Rajon Rondo or a Deron Williams but I would consider Curry one of the top five or six best passing PGs in the league.

----------------------------------------------------

I also believe that Steph Curry is one of those guys who will grow considerably as he gets more responsibility on the court. He doesn't quite understand just how gifted he truly is ... he reminds me a lot of a younger Nash in that respect (Nash early in Dallas to Nash late in Dallas to Nash with Phoenix = as his respective team better took advantage of his skill-set + as Nash's confidence in his ability grew + as he developed) ... Curry knows he's good but he hasn't been put in a position where he can figure out just how brilliant he can be.

--------------------------------------------------

I also think Curry can become an average defender/rebounder after spending some time on a quality defensive team.

[18isGREATERthan72]

I think Steph Curry is an underrated player.

Monta Ellis' presence on that team is holding him back. Ellis dominates the ball too much ... relegates Curry to a smaller role than he should have (as a passer/playmaker rather than more scoring).

I think Curry would be an 8-9 assist guy ... and possibly 10+ assist guy down the road ... on a team that better took advantage of his passing skills. A very impressive passer. Good vision, good decision, excellent range of passing.

Not as good a passer as Rajon Rondo or a Deron Williams but I would consider Curry one of the top five or six best passing PGs in the league.

----------------------------------------------------

I also believe that Steph Curry is one of those guys who will grow considerably as he gets more responsibility on the court. He doesn't quite understand just how gifted he truly is ... he reminds me a lot of a younger Nash in that respect (Nash early in Dallas to Nash late in Dallas to Nash with Phoenix = as his respective team better took advantage of his skill-set + as Nash's confidence in his ability grew + as he developed) ... Curry knows he's good but he hasn't been put in a position where he can figure out just how brilliant he can be.

--------------------------------------------------

I also think Curry can become an average defender/rebounder after spending some time on a quality defensive team.

For real though, Steph Curry is a unique talent.  Possibly one of the best shooters in the league, so he's definitely going to grow into something more than he is now... But him having less assists in Golden State can be said about Rondo not scoring as much here.  Imagine if Rondo had a team that ran more, and had decent 3 point shooting around him.  Rondo would be exceptional in that sort of system.