And, honestly, what's more important? How well Rondo shoots and how closely players guard him or how much of an overall impact he has on the offense? I'd say the latter but that seems to put my in a clear minority.
If Rondo did such a good job running the offense compared to other point guards in the league, why was Boston's offense below average this year? Yeah, he did a great job creating open shots for teammates but let's not kid ourselves that his own lack of scoring ability hurt the offense.
Honestly? Everyone that pays much attention to the team can tell you that the reason we're a below average offensive team is due to weak offensive rebounding. We're one of the best teams aside from that. We're near the league leaders in eFG% and TS%.
I pay a lot of attention to the Celtics, and I'd say their offensive issues go a lot deeper than just a lack of offensive rebounding.
They're 18th in offense. They're 30th by a wide margin in offensive rebounds. If we were an average offensive team we'd be a top 10 offense. If you ignore the effects of offensive rebounding we'd be a top 6 offense.
Right, but if they were a better offensive rebounding team, that means they put more effort into offensive rebounding, which means they put more guys around the rim, which means less guys get back, which means worse defense, which means less advantageous offensive sets and transition buckets, which means a less efficient offense.
And beyond that theory, I think there are bigger issues on offense for the Cs than offensive rebounding.