Are we really better w/o Rondo or will his return vault us back to eliteness?

[Vermont Green]

You just have to take the numbers for what they are.  We lose the league assist leader, replace him with a hapless near-rookie, and our team assists and wins go up.  Even if assists stayed the same, I think this is still a stat to pay attentin to.

Well if you want to look at why the team started winning look to our defense, our defensive rating came back to top of the league (4th atm) after a very rough start to the season.

That combined with Paul Pierce's improved play are the reason we're winning more games. He went from not playing and then playing poorly to playing like the Pierce we've seen for years.

Before Rondo went out:
38% FG 43% 3P% 4.7 FTA 4.9 RPG 3.9 APG 2.5 TPG 14.9  PPG

After Rondo went out:
48% FG 43% 3P% 6.6 FTA 6 RPG, 7.5 APG 3.8 TPG 21.5 PPG

OK, cause and effect, I could argue that the stats you present prove that Paul Pierce plays better when Bradley plays over Rondo so I guess if we want PP to play well, we need to keep Rondo on the bench.

Why do you resist concluding that Rondo could improve the team by playing more like Bradley and less like Rondo.  Meaning more just passing to keep the ball moving (team passing) over dribbling around until he can make the perfect pass and get an assist (Rondo passing).  The team can get more assists if Rondo gets less assists; counter-intuitive yes but proven by the recent results.  Paul Pierce will play better if Rondo gets less assists (less assists as a surrogate for team passing over Rondo passing).

Basketball played that way is a beautiful thing.  Rondo is smart and good but he hasn't fully figured this out yet.  He needs to just give up the ball and hang around the baseline more like Bradley has been doing.  I suspect Bradley is doing exactly what Doc is telling him, exactly.  Where as Rondo maybe not so much.  In the end, Rondo would get more easy baskets, more rebounds, and the team would get more assists and win more because Rondo is better than Bradley.  Then if he started to play defense the way Bradley has been, we would be in really good shape.

[CelticsFanNC]

Rondo can never win with this fanbase...

Who needs an allstar point guard when you have the immortal combination of avery bradley and etwaun moore?

  Agree'd.  Celtic fans need someone to dog at all times and Rondo is the current target of many.  I know Rajon is far from the perfect player but he is the only All-Star level talent on this team that isn't past his prime.  

  People say, "hey. we're winning without him so that must mean we don't need him".  Hello, Chicago continued to win without reigning MVP Derek Rose.  Does anyone in their right mind think the Bull's would be better off without Rose?  

[BballTim]

I think we will benefit from his return, but I think Bradley has hurt Rondo's chances for another 1st team all-defense by showing even better defense from within the same defensive scheme. Esp with TA probably locking up the other guard spot, leaving Rondo competing with all the remaining guards.

Not that such award really matter. I just think we won't know the answer to the original thread question until he returns.

  If Rondo played all 82games against Jameer Nelson he'd win DPOY by a landslide. Bradley doesn't really play better defense than Rondo. Just ask Irving. Or Bayless.

[BballTim]

I hope that when Rondo's back he'll stop coughing up the ball 4 times a game. It's unacceptable.

  Most of the point guards were turning the ball over a lot at the beginning of the year. The shortened preseason no doubt had a lot to do with that.

Not really. From the top PGs, the only ones that seemed to be in a funk were Deron Williams and Kyle Lowry. Everyone else was pretty much up to par with their last season performance.

  Without even looking, I'd say that Nash and Westbrook were in that grouping as well. I'm sure there were others as well.

And Lowry is probably having his best season ever (not that he has been considered a top PG in the past). Could his increased TOs be mostly due to increased usage?

Westbrook is essentially the same as last year in TOs, though with considerable fewer assists (and the same scoring avg). Side note: anyone ever notice how despite all his Sportscenter highlights shooting 3's, he shoots .273 for his career from 3?

Nash's TOs seem to be at his normal rate.

Deron, on the other hand, seems to be down in every stat except turnovers.

  We were talking about the start of the season.

[SHAQATTACK]

I guess we'll see how RR plays when he gets back, now that we have seen HOW Doc wants his guards to play (AB &Moore).   Less show and dribble and waste of time. Move the ball down court and keep the team passing the ball without putting it on the floor so much.  If Rondo stands around looking , that puts the team and me to sleep and kills the momenteum of the run when the Celtics finally get in groove.

If Rondo doesn't move the offense correct , then bench him and let him learn the hard way.

Watching the team develope without Rondo on the court has been eye opening for me.

[Fafnir]

You just have to take the numbers for what they are.  We lose the league assist leader, replace him with a hapless near-rookie, and our team assists and wins go up.  Even if assists stayed the same, I think this is still a stat to pay attentin to.

Well if you want to look at why the team started winning look to our defense, our defensive rating came back to top of the league (4th atm) after a very rough start to the season.

That combined with Paul Pierce's improved play are the reason we're winning more games. He went from not playing and then playing poorly to playing like the Pierce we've seen for years.

Before Rondo went out:
38% FG 43% 3P% 4.7 FTA 4.9 RPG 3.9 APG 2.5 TPG 14.9  PPG

After Rondo went out:
48% FG 43% 3P% 6.6 FTA 6 RPG, 7.5 APG 3.8 TPG 21.5 PPG

OK, cause and effect, I could argue that the stats you present prove that Paul Pierce plays better when Bradley plays over Rondo so I guess if we want PP to play well, we need to keep Rondo on the bench.

Why do you resist concluding that Rondo could improve the team by playing more like Bradley and less like Rondo.  Meaning more just passing to keep the ball moving (team passing) over dribbling around until he can make the perfect pass and get an assist (Rondo passing).  The team can get more assists if Rondo gets less assists; counter-intuitive yes but proven by the recent results.  Paul Pierce will play better if Rondo gets less assists (less assists as a surrogate for team passing over Rondo passing).

Because you're taking a per game number of assists, without respect to pace and competition and assinging a lot of casuality to it. I think we've played an easier slate overall since his injury so that also plays into my perceptions.

With Rondo:
Pace 87.4
1.03 PPP Scored
1.04 PPP Given up
Team Assist % 64.4

Without Rondo:
Pace 88.25
1.02 PPP Scored
.907 PPP Given up
Team Assist % 64.4

What among those numbers makes you think the change offensively of having Pierce play de facto PG is the reason we've won a bunch of games?

I personally think Rondo and then Pierce both have carried almost all the play making for this squad admirably, but we need both on the court playing at a high level if we want an offrense that's better than 20th in the league.

[Fan from VT]

You just have to take the numbers for what they are.  We lose the league assist leader, replace him with a hapless near-rookie, and our team assists and wins go up.  Even if assists stayed the same, I think this is still a stat to pay attentin to.

Well if you want to look at why the team started winning look to our defense, our defensive rating came back to top of the league (4th atm) after a very rough start to the season.

That combined with Paul Pierce's improved play are the reason we're winning more games. He went from not playing and then playing poorly to playing like the Pierce we've seen for years.

Before Rondo went out:
38% FG 43% 3P% 4.7 FTA 4.9 RPG 3.9 APG 2.5 TPG 14.9  PPG

After Rondo went out:
48% FG 43% 3P% 6.6 FTA 6 RPG, 7.5 APG 3.8 TPG 21.5 PPG

OK, cause and effect, I could argue that the stats you present prove that Paul Pierce plays better when Bradley plays over Rondo so I guess if we want PP to play well, we need to keep Rondo on the bench.

Why do you resist concluding that Rondo could improve the team by playing more like Bradley and less like Rondo.  Meaning more just passing to keep the ball moving (team passing) over dribbling around until he can make the perfect pass and get an assist (Rondo passing).  The team can get more assists if Rondo gets less assists; counter-intuitive yes but proven by the recent results.  Paul Pierce will play better if Rondo gets less assists (less assists as a surrogate for team passing over Rondo passing).

Basketball played that way is a beautiful thing.  Rondo is smart and good but he hasn't fully figured this out yet.  He needs to just give up the ball and hang around the baseline more like Bradley has been doing.  I suspect Bradley is doing exactly what Doc is telling him, exactly.  Where as Rondo maybe not so much.  In the end, Rondo would get more easy baskets, more rebounds, and the team would get more assists and win more because Rondo is better than Bradley.  Then if he started to play defense the way Bradley has been, we would be in really good shape.

It's easy to say that we were losing when Rondo was playing. It's very hard to say we were losing BECAUSE Rondo was playing.

When Rondo was playing, even though the team lost games, the team was winning when Rondo was on the floor: When on the floor, the C's outscored opponents by 4.1 points; when he has sat, the C's have been outscored by -.7 points. How does that equate to Rondo=losing? Rondo was dressed when they were losing games, but they were winning when he was actually on the court.

In fact, that second number (+/- when Rondo has sat) includes all the recent games when he has sat with injury. So even with all the wins since his injury, the C's have still been outscored if Rondo sits; in the early games, Rondo was so much the only good thing we had going that we outscored opponents when he played and were so outscored when he sat during those games that even winning while he sits with injury hasn't made up for how putrid everyone else was to start the season.

[kozlodoev]

We were talking about the start of the season.

It's unclear how you define "start of season". I used 10 games, which was a pretty arbitrary cut-off.

The suggested pattern ("all PGs turned a the ball a lot early on") was really only present for Westbrook, who was god-awful the first 10 games.

You can't tell whether Rondo displays the suggested pattern, since he's only played 14 games, but for now he sustains a rate of 3.9 TOs per game, which is .5 more than last season. Add to this the fact that he's displayed a sustained increase of his TO/game over the course of his career, and there's plenty to worry about.

[BballTim]

One thing that I find interesting about Rondo in vs out stats is that we are actually averaging more assists per game with Rondo out (22.9) than with Rondo in (21.6).  How is this possible when you are replacing a player perceived to be the best passer in the world [ ] with a near rookie who appears to struggle handling the ball/team?

My conclusion from this is that by eliminating the affect of Rondo hanging on to the ball too much, Garnett, Pierce and others are seeing their assists increase.  To me, having a team where you are getting assists from everyone is much harder to defend than a team where 1 guys tries to get all the assists (not literally of course).  The ball is moving better since Rondo sat down (at least that is what I see).

 We average more assists when Rondo plays than when he doesnt. We also have  an oRtg of over 104 when he plays, compared to under 96 when he's out. I don't think that your idea of when we're harder to defend is accurate.

  It's also worth pointing out that 7 of the 13 opponents Rondo faced are in the top13 in the league in defense, 1 team out of the 8 we've faced without him is. Makes a difference.

[guava_wrench]

We don't have a big enough sample size to say much about the question in the subject. Too much statistical noise considering how few games have been played and the unique condition of our team at the start of the season.

We do have a lot of data from the past seasons that indicates our defense can be amazing with Rondo.

[BballTim]

You just have to take the numbers for what they are.  We lose the league assist leader, replace him with a hapless near-rookie, and our team assists and wins go up.  Even if assists stayed the same, I think this is still a stat to pay attentin to.

Well if you want to look at why the team started winning look to our defense, our defensive rating came back to top of the league (4th atm) after a very rough start to the season.

That combined with Paul Pierce's improved play are the reason we're winning more games. He went from not playing and then playing poorly to playing like the Pierce we've seen for years.

Before Rondo went out:
38% FG 43% 3P% 4.7 FTA 4.9 RPG 3.9 APG 2.5 TPG 14.9  PPG

After Rondo went out:
48% FG 43% 3P% 6.6 FTA 6 RPG, 7.5 APG 3.8 TPG 21.5 PPG

OK, cause and effect, I could argue that the stats you present prove that Paul Pierce plays better when Bradley plays over Rondo so I guess if we want PP to play well, we need to keep Rondo on the bench.

Why do you resist concluding that Rondo could improve the team by playing more like Bradley and less like Rondo.  Meaning more just passing to keep the ball moving (team passing) over dribbling around until he can make the perfect pass and get an assist (Rondo passing).  The team can get more assists if Rondo gets less assists; counter-intuitive yes but proven by the recent results.  Paul Pierce will play better if Rondo gets less assists (less assists as a surrogate for team passing over Rondo passing).

  Rondo gets assists because he runs the offense well and gets people good looks, there's nothing nefarious about his motives. Paul Pierce clearly plays better with Rondo running the offense, he just came off the most efficient scoring season of his career. We played against better defenses with KG playing poorly, Pierce out or playing poorly and Pietrus out or just learning the system and our offense was *still* better than it has been recently with Rondo running it.

[snively]

You just have to take the numbers for what they are.  We lose the league assist leader, replace him with a hapless near-rookie, and our team assists and wins go up.  Even if assists stayed the same, I think this is still a stat to pay attentin to.

Well if you want to look at why the team started winning look to our defense, our defensive rating came back to top of the league (4th atm) after a very rough start to the season.

That combined with Paul Pierce's improved play are the reason we're winning more games. He went from not playing and then playing poorly to playing like the Pierce we've seen for years.

Before Rondo went out:
38% FG 43% 3P% 4.7 FTA 4.9 RPG 3.9 APG 2.5 TPG 14.9  PPG

After Rondo went out:
48% FG 43% 3P% 6.6 FTA 6 RPG, 7.5 APG 3.8 TPG 21.5 PPG

OK, cause and effect, I could argue that the stats you present prove that Paul Pierce plays better when Bradley plays over Rondo so I guess if we want PP to play well, we need to keep Rondo on the bench.

Why do you resist concluding that Rondo could improve the team by playing more like Bradley and less like Rondo.  Meaning more just passing to keep the ball moving (team passing) over dribbling around until he can make the perfect pass and get an assist (Rondo passing).  The team can get more assists if Rondo gets less assists; counter-intuitive yes but proven by the recent results.  Paul Pierce will play better if Rondo gets less assists (less assists as a surrogate for team passing over Rondo passing).

Basketball played that way is a beautiful thing.  Rondo is smart and good but he hasn't fully figured this out yet.  He needs to just give up the ball and hang around the baseline more like Bradley has been doing.  I suspect Bradley is doing exactly what Doc is telling him, exactly.  Where as Rondo maybe not so much.  In the end, Rondo would get more easy baskets, more rebounds, and the team would get more assists and win more because Rondo is better than Bradley.  Then if he started to play defense the way Bradley has been, we would be in really good shape.

Rondo frequently does play the Bradley role you're describing.  Especially when Ray, KG or Paul have a favorable match-up to exploit.  He doesn't do it as much as he used to, primarily because there are slightly fewer favorable match-ups for the Big 3 to exploit as they age and because Rondo exploiting his own match-up is often the most desirable option at a given time.

[RJ87]

Kind of hard to be vaulted "back to eliteness" when we're not an elite team to begin with.

I hate to be the party-pooper but even with our improved play of late, I just don't see this team going deep into the playoffs. We have no legitimate interior defensive presence and our rebounding is suspect at best.

I'm sorry, but I only see the season crashing & burning in Chicago or Miami. We just don't have enough young/athletic talent to hang in a 7 game series.

If I'm wrong - which I sincerely hope I am - I'll be the first to admit it.

[Vermont Green]

OK, so there was an argument that Pierce played well last year with Rondo so that proves Rondo is great (paraphrasing).  But Pierce has played great without Rondo for 8 or 9 games so how is it that Rondo is the reason for this (he played pretty well for about 10 years before Rondo came alone also)?  PP has been efficient and balanced with Bradley as the PG, how can that be?

There is also statistical justification for our plus minus with and without Rondo but that ignores the last 9 games without Rondo.  The first team with Rondo does well (as pointed out).  The second team with Bradley, not so well.  The first team with Bradley does just as well (better in the recent small sample) as they do with Rondo, after a few games of getting into the rhythm.  So I don't get what this proves either.

I understand the argument that we are better with Rondo (even though that hasn't been the case this year).  In the long run, Rondo should make us better.  But my point is that he could make us "more" better if he simply played a less ball dominant game.  He should be having this giant "ah-ha" and realizing that the team is playing very well with Bradley even though he is not trying to do all of the dribbling.  Imagine how well the team would be if it was me playing like that.

As you watch the team play this well with Bradley as their point gaurd, how can you want to go back to playing with Rondo dribbling around until he gets 15 assists and then have the offense struggle to score in the 4th quarter?  To me that is simply fair constructive criticism of a very good but flawed player who may be a little stubborn.

[RJ87]

Okay. Partypooping aside.

It's quite comical that people actually think our play improved BECAUSE Rondo went out. Seriously? Did everyone get amnesia and forget that KG and Paul were terrible to start the season?

"Rondo should play more like AB" Absolutely not. AB is legitimately half the player Rondo is. He's all defense and accidental offense. He can barely dribble the basketball let alone run an offense effectively. HE IS NOT A PG.

Another interesting situation happened just around the time Rondo went out that people seem to be underestimating: Danny Ainge publicily stating he'd make a big move if we didn't improve. I'm not Paul or KG so I can't state whether or not this lit a fire under them or it made them less than comfortable in their play, but all I know is before this, Paul looked like he was sleepwalking through the season and KG looked like he was going to pull a Jerry Sloan and announce his retirement midseason.

Of course, having a legit PG - an AllStar at that - back in the lineup will help. To question it is a little absurd. Honestly, if these versions of KG and Paul were playing with Rondo, Ray, and Bass to start the season, we'd have a few more wins without question.

So yeah, he's going to help. As much as he can. Are we "elite" is an entirely different discussion.