Rondo Driving to the Hoop Less?

[BballTim]

I think the main reason he avoids going to the hoop, though, is that his free throw shooting sucks and he doesn't want to get battered by contact only to put up a couple bricks at the line.

  There are 58 guards that have played at least 300 minutes in the playoffs the last 3 years (arbitrary minutes cutoff) and of those 58 Rondo's tied for 20th in FTA/minute. Not the best, but not horrible for a 4th option. He averages 4.2 FTA per 36min, only 7 players averaged over 6. I think claims that he avoids the line like the plague are fairly overblown.

perhaps, but he doesn't get to the line nearly as often as he could. 

we've seen games in the playoffs when rondo does play aggressively and scored 20+ points while getting to the line fairly frequently.

i think it's a fair question whether Rondo could ever play that way on a regular basis, though.  i'm not sure he's physically built to withstand that kind of punishment.

  I don't mind him playing less aggressively during the regular season. In spite of all the talk about his jump shot and ft shooting I think durability might be his biggest concern.

[Chris]

I think the main reason he avoids going to the hoop, though, is that his free throw shooting sucks and he doesn't want to get battered by contact only to put up a couple bricks at the line.

  There are 58 guards that have played at least 300 minutes in the playoffs the last 3 years (arbitrary minutes cutoff) and of those 58 Rondo's tied for 20th in FTA/minute. Not the best, but not horrible for a 4th option. He averages 4.2 FTA per 36min, only 7 players averaged over 6. I think claims that he avoids the line like the plague are fairly overblown.

perhaps, but he doesn't get to the line nearly as often as he could. 

we've seen games in the playoffs when rondo does play aggressively and scored 20+ points while getting to the line fairly frequently.

i think it's a fair question whether Rondo could ever play that way on a regular basis, though.  i'm not sure he's physically built to withstand that kind of punishment.

  I don't mind him playing less aggressively during the regular season. In spite of all the talk about his jump shot and ft shooting I think durability might be his biggest concern.

I agree with this.  I complain about Rondo sometimes "cruising", but I also know it is for the best.

Rondo's skillset is unique in that when he turns it up, he is better than 99% of the league.  However, he also takes a larger drop than other guys, who can fall back on things like shooting, or just being bigger than everyone else, when he is not turned up all the way.

For guys like Lebron, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, etc., what sets them apart is that when they are not going 100%, they are still probably an All-Star player.  I would argue that Rondo's best is as good, and potentially even better than all of those guys, but he just drops off so much further than they do when he is not "on", due to his unique skillset.

And, the problem is, no one can go at the speed Rondo is at his best at for 82 games and the playoffs.  It is impossible to do that and still be fresh, and not get injured. 

So, instead, you get spurts, and Rondo has gotten better and better at knowing when to turn those spurts on.

[ballin]

I think the main reason he avoids going to the hoop, though, is that his free throw shooting sucks and he doesn't want to get battered by contact only to put up a couple bricks at the line.

  There are 58 guards that have played at least 300 minutes in the playoffs the last 3 years (arbitrary minutes cutoff) and of those 58 Rondo's tied for 20th in FTA/minute. Not the best, but not horrible for a 4th option. He averages 4.2 FTA per 36min, only 7 players averaged over 6. I think claims that he avoids the line like the plague are fairly overblown.

perhaps, but he doesn't get to the line nearly as often as he could.  

we've seen games in the playoffs when rondo does play aggressively and scored 20+ points while getting to the line fairly frequently.

i think it's a fair question whether Rondo could ever play that way on a regular basis, though.  i'm not sure he's physically built to withstand that kind of punishment.

  I don't mind him playing less aggressively during the regular season. In spite of all the talk about his jump shot and ft shooting I think durability might be his biggest concern.

I agree with this.  I complain about Rondo sometimes "cruising", but I also know it is for the best.

Rondo's skillset is unique in that when he turns it up, he is better than 99% of the league.  However, he also takes a larger drop than other guys, who can fall back on things like shooting, or just being bigger than everyone else, when he is not turned up all the way.

For guys like Lebron, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, etc., what sets them apart is that when they are not going 100%, they are still probably an All-Star player.  I would argue that Rondo's best is as good, and potentially even better than all of those guys, but he just drops off so much further than they do when he is not "on", due to his unique skillset.

And, the problem is, no one can go at the speed Rondo is at his best at for 82 games and the playoffs.  It is impossible to do that and still be fresh, and not get injured.  

So, instead, you get spurts, and Rondo has gotten better and better at knowing when to turn those spurts on.

I disagree. It's 36 minutes of playing time, broken up by timeouts, commercial timeouts, halftime, free throws, ends of quarters, etc. He's a professional freaking athlete. He can definitely go 100% every game if he wanted to, but he chooses not to. There are a lot of players in the league that don't take games off (KG for instance). KG went all out every night of his career and he didn't have a real injury until he was well into his 30s. So I'm not buying that 'self-preservation' argument.

If Rondo could take games off and still be semi effective (like Pierce) I wouldn't be upset. But you're right... he SUCKS when he's not going hard. And while Paul might take off a game here and there, Rondo seems to do it in stretches. It's ugly. For these reasons I'd argue that Rondo is NOT a player to build around, and we'd be much better off if we could somehow trade him for Chris Paul.