Despite how bad the team as a whole as played, I think it's fair to say that Rondo has done about as much as he could possibly be expected to do so far this season. He's come out from the very first tip off looking like he wants to prove to everyone that he's a star, and his numbers for the year so far would be his best season, at least statistically speaking.
Despite Rondo's great play, the team has struggled mightily against all but the very worst teams they've played. I can't help thinking that this is strong confirmation about what many of us have suspected all along -- Rondo is a very good player, but he's not capable of carrying a flawed team.
One caveat is that the team as currently constructed does not play to his strengths. Half of the roster is not fast enough to keep up with him on fast breaks, or play the game the way he'd probably most like to play it. Yet even as bad as they've been, there's still a lot of talent on this roster. But with Paul playing badly and KG looking "creaky" (to put it mildly), the team has had an extremely difficult time scoring.
To me this just underlines that you can't expect Rondo to carry a team offensively; if he's the most capable and consistent scorer on the roster (or even the #2), your team is going to have a very difficult time scoring points, and therefore most likely your team is just not going to be very good.
First of all I don't think Rondo's really come out to prove anything to anyone, and he's not really trying to "carry the team", he's still playing within the system and getting people good looks at the basket instead of trying to score all the time. Also, you say there's a lot of talent on this team and I agree. But you're judging him on how the team has played so far, and so far PP is a small forward scoring 15 a game on 37% shooting and KG and JO are having trouble putting the ball in the hoop when he gets them the ball. I'd say they get fouled as often as they get shots off. I could also point out that most of the league is having trouble scoring this year. The Celts are 18th in offensive efficiency, just like the were last year, but at about *5* points per possession less this year.
But I'd say that your main problem is trying to use this team's performance as evidence that Rondo doesn't do much to carry a team or an offense. The Celt's offensive rating when Rondo plays is 104, when he's out of the game it's 88. For reference, that's about the same difference in offensive efficiency that the Cavs saw with LeBron on and off the court in 2009-2010. As a team, we outscore opponents by 2.5 points per48 when he's in the game and get outscored by 17.6 per48 when he's on the bench.
Clearly you're not a fan of Rondo. But I don't see how you can really watch the games and come to the conclusion that the problem with the Celts is a sign that Rondo doesn't have a big effect on our team's fortunes. They've been pretty dreadful aside from him. I didn't see the second half last night, but in the first half when he came out of the game they were up by 1. 6 or so minutes later he re-entered the game. The Celts were down by 10, and scored a grand total of 2 points in those 6 minutes. It wasn't all because of Rondo not being in the game, but much of it was.
Topic: Early Season Lesson: Rondo Can't Carry a Team (Read 23209 times)