I put Perk in there because when Perk was manning the middle along with a younger quicker KG Rondo was able to get away with his gambling. Now that Perk is gone and KG is looking way old all of a sudden, he can't. (Although maybe Steimsma will give us some defensive presence again)
Did you miss the fact that Rondo and Perk only played together for a grand total of 12 games last year?
And yet, somehow, without him, Rondo was one of the KEY pieces for one of the top 2 defenses in the NBA last year? Rondo played the third most minutes on a team that posted the most stingy defensive rating in the NBA.
Maybe you need to stop worrying about how individual players do at 'blowing past' other individual players in anecdotal incidents and take into account what actually matters: How many points the other _team_ ends up actually scoring.
By that measure - the only defensive measure that ultimately matters - Rondo is clearly doing pretty well on defense.
What is ironic in reading this thread is how the goal posts have moved. It started out by folks complaining about how Rondo is 'undermining the team' and 'his defense is very weak'. Now, the thread has back-pedaled to complaining that "Well, maybe he's okay, but he's definitely not an _elite_ defender!'".
It's been entertaining, but this thread is ridiculous.
What's ridiculous is taking quotes from 3-4 other people and attributing them to one poster to try and make your point. I have always said Rondo has the physical "ability" to be the best defender in the league, but gambles way too much to be labled that and has many times in the past relied on Perk and KG to a lesser degree to cover up his misses. He also does a poor job defending shooters since he likes to drift off his man trying to cheat into the passing lane and ends up getting lit up from the outside. That to me does not qualify him as being the best defender in the NBA. If he put the focus on it he could be. He just chooses to go for steals instead. It's just like trying to block an outside shooters shot. Once in while you might get it, but usually you'll just foul them...
As far as Perk goes, I was referring to the entire body of work with Rondo and KG and Perk, not just last season.
Rondo's aggressive steals are usually within the scheme of the defense. In particular he'll usually steal to the side that's away from his help.
On Rondo sagging off some shooters, the whole _point_ of the Celtic's defensive philosophy is to deny the paint and _accept_ an outside jump shot. If you get any contention on it at all, long outside jump shots are only going to hit about 35%. So they are going to miss about 65% of those shots and of those misses, the Celtics are going to grab about 3/4 of them, which means that when his opponent launches it from deep, there is almost a 50% chance it is going to become Celtics ball immediately and even if not, there is still a good chance they'll get it after the next shot, putting the total chance that the C's get the ball back before they score at over 50%. If Rondo has forced his guy to take such a shot, then he's mostly won the strategic battle. If he gets any contention on it, then he HAS won the strategic battle. Sure, sometimes players are going to sink those shots. But that's the breaks. The odds simply favor making them take long outside shots rather than surrender shots near the rim.
It's funny that you criticize Rondo on one hand for his aggression and then on the other for playing too far off. Your appeal to whatever you might have offered proposing Rondo as having 'he physical "ability" to be the best defender in the league' seems like a disingenuous asteism because given all the 'faults' you cite it would seem an impossible notion.
It also smells of straw man because I don't believe I've seen anyone on this thread actually make any claim that Rondo is the 'best defender in the league'. Some have claimed or asked if Rondo might be the best defensive PG in the league. That's certainly debatable.
In either case, whether Rondo plays too aggressively or two far off his man, the net results are best measured in points on the scoreboard and against that measure, your personal assessment of his abilities seem at odds.
Your assertion about Perk though, fails in the face that there is a very very large body of evidence that Rondo's defense does not depend on Perk's presence behind him in particular. It would have been more reasonable to say that Rondo's defense is dependent on the nature of the team around him. And that may indeed be true. Not particularly relevant since he's not playing on some other team. But true.
As I said, this thread is ridiculous.
Topic: Rondo's Defense undermining team (Read 27976 times)