Rondo for Pau Gasol trade revisited

[BballTim]

meh.  Fair to say that even with BballTim's opinions... we can settle on the fact that we simply don't know how this team would play with Pau Gasol.  Thread is based on a shaky premise.  We have a 22-13 record when our 3rd best player (Rondo) doesn't play.  Fair to say that if we added arguably the most talented big man in the game (Pau Gasol) to that 22-13 team... we'd improve on that 22-13 record.   

  I think how the team fares in the playoffs is somewhat more important than our regular season record with and without individual players. In the playoffs, over the last 4 years, we're 31-22 with an average margin of +2 ppg. PP has been out of the game for 528 minutes in those games, we score even with our opponents when he's out. When KG's been out of the game we've been outscored by about 2 points per 48 minutes. When Rondo's out of the game we've been outscored by just over 9 points a game.

  Doing out the math on Rondo, we're roughly 14 points per game worse in the playoffs when he's out of the game. To put it another way, if Gasol was here instead of Rondo his positive impact on the games when he played would have to be twice as much as KG's in order to break even on the deal.

Brotha you're reachin.  We've never lost a playoff game with Rondo as a DNP. 

I'm done arguing with you.  You bring up quirky stats as some means of proving ... something.  Actually... not even sure what you're proving? 

  You might feel that they're quirky stats but at least I have stats. You seem to make claims based on whether they bolster your argument without really knowing whether they're true or not. You keep claiming that Rondo's our third most valuable player. If so, you should easily be able to explain why we do so much worse in the playofs with Rondo out (-9 points per 48) than we do with PP out (we seem to play even up without him).

  Also consider that they're both on the bench at the same time some of the time, so that difference would be that we do ok with PP out and Rondo playing but we get scorched when PP is in and Rondo's out (aka when we do "just fine" because PP likes it when the offense runs through him). I'm just curious why you think we do ok when the valuable player is out of the game but get scorched when less valuable players are on the bench.

  I'm also curious about, since you keep pointing out that winning without Rondo means he's not that key, how you reconcile that we do equally well without KG (who you consider to be hands down the most valuable player). Because I would think that a stat that's either important or meaningless depending on who you apply it to falls well into the "quirky" category"

We're talking about two different things.  You're using some bogus +/- nonsense to back your stance.  I'm talking about games where Rondo flat out didn't play.  We win 63% of them.  When Pierce misses games, we have a losing record.  Hence why I say you're using "quirky" stats.  I'm not interested in +/- when so much of it factors on the system the team is running and who is on the court when Rondo is on the bench.  Again... we're 22-13 when Rondo flat out doesn't play.  18-10 over the past two years.  Undefeated in the playoffs.

Tim.  I'm glad you love ROndo.  Good for you.  Stop bothering me in every thread I post on to declare your love for Rondo.  Lol.  I don't care.  I get it.  *clap* *clap*. I love Rondo too.  I'm glad you think Rondo is the team's best player.  Whatever works for you, man.   As I see it, this team isn't a title contender without Kevin Garnett.  Last time I tried to argue this point it was with a bunch of Celtics fans (perhaps you were one of them) in 2009 who were trying to tell me that Glen Davis was an adequate replacement for KG.  They were wrong.  We overachieved against a mediocre Chicago team and ultimately lost to Orlando the next round.  I felt we kinda settled that back in 2010.  In 09 without KG this team BARELY beat Chicago.  The next year, KG comes back and in our first two games against Chicago we blew them out by 28 points and 26 points.  Oh what a difference KG makes.

This isn't about Kevin Garnett.  The premise of this thread is that we'd be significantly worse with Pau Gasol than with Rondo.  To back up this premise, you're pointing out that the Celtics play worse when Rondo is on the bench.  Gee... Ya think???  No kidding.  Team plays better with our point guard running the show than when our bench players are in.  REally?  Wow.  Fascinating.  Who woulda thunk.  Sarcasm aside... what does this have to do with hypothetically replacing Rondo with a dominant big man, surrounding our twin towers with shooters and re-imagining our offense around them?  Come on, Tim.  You're intentionally missing the point and I'm getting bored. 

  First of all, it's great that you were right that Glen Davis isn't as good as KG (I wasn't arguing that obviously) but that isn't really impressive enough to bolster the impact of your opinion. And if your counter to my stats is "Team plays better with our point guard running the show than when our bench players are in.  REally?  Wow.  Fascinating.", then maybe you could explain why we don't play much better with our all-world small forward in the game than with bench players, or why we don't see a great dropoff when our superstar all-defense team mvp power forward is replaced by the likes of Powe, Davis and Sheed.

  And, yet again, if our record without Rondo means that he's not important to our success, doesn't the the fact that we've done as well or possibly better without KG mean that he's no more valuable to our success than Rondo? Because "this thread isn't about KG" doesn't do much more to bolster your opinion than "I knew that KG was better than Baby".

[BballTim]

The reason Rondo's been good this year is because he's played hard most of the year.

And then there was Thursday night.

If Rondo would ever bring Garnett's effort every night, he would deserve the praise that's so lavishly feasted upon him. If he'd ever decide to attack every possession with the basketball and stay in front of his man on every defensive possession, he might be as great as some of you insist he is.

But until I see both of the above, I'm not buying it. We were better in the fourth quarter Thursday night with Dooling keeping the ball moving, and that's absolutely inexcusable.

  First of all, Rondo may not have had the best 4th quarter (but he wasn't that bad), but we scored 16 straight when he came back into the 2nd quarter, and he did much of the damage in that run. We went from 6 down to 10 up, and we're looking at game 7 if that didn't happen. Secondly, you have to consider how people (this board, for instance) views players. KG had one of the better games we've seen from him as a Celtic, in part because he was motivated by comments by the Hawks owner. Everyone claims that Rondo having games where he plays better than normal a sign of his inconsistency. Am I reading the same kind of comments about KG?

[ImShakHeIsShaq]

The issue is irrelevant because tonight Rondo will be celebrating a win over Philly after throwing up a 20 point 14 assist game and Gasol will be crying by his locker after getting his ass handed to him once again by a 6'7" 22 year old rookie.

I'm not getting into this thread's argument but I had to say this... Faried straight kicked our butts and won the game pretty much himself against us! That kid is a beast!

[thestackshow]

Pau Gasol at this stage in his career is a scrub, Rondo is far more valuable then him.

Lakers will be lucky to even get anyone decent for him this off season.

18 million and hes averaging 12 and 8 in the playoffs. Laughable. No way in hell would I trade the 2nd best point guard in the league for a washed up old big man.

[GreenFaith1819]

The issue is irrelevant because tonight Rondo will be celebrating a win over Philly after throwing up a 20 point 14 assist game and Gasol will be crying by his locker after getting his ass handed to him once again by a 6'7" 22 year old rookie.

LOL...Man I hope so.

Kenneth Faried has eaten Pau's lunch most of this series....I hope Kenneth eats his breakfast, lunch, dinner, latenight snack...tonight.

Take all of his food, Kenneth!

[thestackshow]

The issue is irrelevant because tonight Rondo will be celebrating a win over Philly after throwing up a 20 point 14 assist game and Gasol will be crying by his locker after getting his ass handed to him once again by a 6'7" 22 year old rookie.

LOL...Man I hope so.

Kenneth Faried has eating Pau's lunch most of this series....I hope Kenneth eats his breakfast, lunch, dinner, latenight snack...tonight.

Take all of his food, Kenneth!

Faried is one of my favorite players, that guy makes me fired up and im not even a nugget fan.

[GreenFaith1819]

The issue is irrelevant because tonight Rondo will be celebrating a win over Philly after throwing up a 20 point 14 assist game and Gasol will be crying by his locker after getting his ass handed to him once again by a 6'7" 22 year old rookie.

LOL...Man I hope so.

Kenneth Faried has eating Pau's lunch most of this series....I hope Kenneth eats his breakfast, lunch, dinner, latenight snack...tonight.

Take all of his food, Kenneth!

Faried is one of my favorite players, that guy makes me fired up and im not even a nugget fan.

Tell you what...this is slightly off-topic (sorry), but DEN's GM (Majiri?) is looking like a fatcat.

He traded Nene for Javale..that was a shocker. Now? The young 7 footer has had a decent series vs an All-star center in Bynum.

Their team is young..but so much promise in DEN. They are well-coached and have vets in the right places (Miller and Harrington).

DEN deserves to win tonight. Send em' home in an upset, DEN!!

[BballTim]

My opinion:  Point guards don't win titles.  Big men do.

And yet you want to sign Deron Williams to a max contact.

That's an idea.  I like Deron over Rondo, because Deron does everything Rondo does... but is bigger and a far better shooter/scorer.  Deron is just a better player.  Period.  Obviously wouldn't be the end-all move.  You don't simply win a title with Deron Williams by himself and you sure as heck don't simply win a title with Rondo by himself.   But you're leaving out the key part of my Deron Williams pipe dream... if you signed him to the Celtics you'd then be able to move Rondo to the highest bidder.  Ultimate fantasy is landing Dwight HOward for Rondo, both our first rounders + whatever else Orlando wants...

Also the only reason I mention Deron is because he's BY FAR the best unrestricted free agent this offseason and we happen to have cap space.  If our MVP Kevin Garnett retires... I'm not sure how else we could make an immediate impact this offseason.  

Sure Deron Williams does everything Rondo does, but Rondo does quite a bit of it better like passing, rebounding and playing defense.  Williams shoots better from the perimeter and scores more points.

I don't know if you find playing D, rebounding, and passing to be irrelevant, and shooting the basketball to be the only skill that has any significance, but it sure seems that way.

I disagree that Rondo is a better passer than Williams
If Deron has 3 hall of famers on his team, or even more capable players than his Nets teammates, his assists would go up too. Rondo's passes are just more flashier

  That's debatable. KG and PP are among the leaders in assists at their positions, they're more likely to pass than just shoot when Deron gives them the ball. Rondo's assists don't seem to drop much when they're out of the lineup and he's passing to players like Bradley, Daniels and Steamer.

[BballTim]

My opinion:  Point guards don't win titles.  Big men do.

And yet you want to sign Deron Williams to a max contact.

That's an idea.  I like Deron over Rondo, because Deron does everything Rondo does... but is bigger and a far better shooter/scorer.  Deron is just a better player.  Period.  Obviously wouldn't be the end-all move.  You don't simply win a title with Deron Williams by himself and you sure as heck don't simply win a title with Rondo by himself.   But you're leaving out the key part of my Deron Williams pipe dream... if you signed him to the Celtics you'd then be able to move Rondo to the highest bidder.  Ultimate fantasy is landing Dwight HOward for Rondo, both our first rounders + whatever else Orlando wants...

Also the only reason I mention Deron is because he's BY FAR the best unrestricted free agent this offseason and we happen to have cap space.  If our MVP Kevin Garnett retires... I'm not sure how else we could make an immediate impact this offseason.  

Sure Deron Williams does everything Rondo does, but Rondo does quite a bit of it better like passing, rebounding and playing defense.  Williams shoots better from the perimeter and scores more points.

I don't know if you find playing D, rebounding, and passing to be irrelevant, and shooting the basketball to be the only skill that has any significance, but it sure seems that way.

No.  I think in the right system and teammates, Deron WIlliams has the capacity to be an excellent rebounder and defender.  He's got size on the majority of point guards in the league.  I think all-around he's an upgrade over Rondo.  Deron is Probably the 2nd best point guard in the league behind Chris Paul.  Him or Rose, I guess.  In the past some have argued (somewhat convincingly) that Williams was better than Chris Paul.  He's top 3 for sure.  Rondo's great in his own right, but not on the level of those guys.  People take that as me hating Rondo.  Not true.  I love Rondo.  I love Paul Pierce too (named my cat after him), but that's not going to stop me from admitting he's nowhere near LeBron's level.  I love Ray, but that's not going to stop me from admitting he's not on Kobe's level.  I loved Big Al when he played here too, but it didn't stop me from admitting he was nowhere near Kevin Garnett's level.  It is what it is.  

There are really really good players... and then there are great players.  When in comes to Pau Gasol, I'm in the camp that he's one of the best players in the entire game.  Last year, statistically, he was top 5.  This year he 8th.   That's impressive when you consider what Pau's role is on the Lakers now that Bynum has asserted himself.  I'm one of those people who credits Pau Gasol with the two Laker titles even more-so than Kobe Bryant.  While Kobe was winning 34 games with Lamar Odom and Caron Butler on his lotto Lakers ( http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/LAL/2005.html ), Gasol was off in Memphis leading them to back-to-back-to-back 45-50 win playoff appearances with Mike Miller as his 2nd best player ( http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MEM/2006.html ).  In 2010 when they beat us, Gasol averaged 19 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks in the finals while shooting 48%.  Kobe chucked his way to 28 point average on 40% shooting and ended up winning the MVP.  Kobe was 6-24 in the a deciding game where Gasol had 19 points, 18 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks over us.    Frankly, Gasol earned the Finals MVP that year... not Kobe.  Pau killed us.  We were destroyed inside (especially with Perk out).  Way too much size and we couldn't deal with them.  We have lost our last 3 games to the Lakers for that same reason and will surely be owned by them if we see them in the Finals (last time we beat them... both Shaq and Perk were in our lineup).  Dominant big men are difference makers and Pau Gasol is 4 years younger than Kevin Garnett.  This is a Celtic forum so people rightfully hate Laker players... but ya'll should be thrilled the Lakers are so poorly coached right now, because if they ever figure out how to ride their dominant big men this year... they are going to win the title.

  You should be somewhat concerned that 2 years ago Gasol was better than KG and now KG is quite a bit better than Gasol. That 19/12 was pretty impressive, and he might have deserved the finals MVP that year, but the 12/8 he's averaged over the last 2 years, not so much.

[OmarSekou]

Pau's solid. He has a terrible match up against a guy whose less talented, more physical, more athletic and more aggressive. Doesn't change the fact that he's a stud.

That said, I'm glad we didn't give up Rondo. In my opinion he's better and he's less $, younger, and a better fit for our team and our legacy (I don't want Lakers).

[LarBrd33]

Rondo for Pau Gasol trade revisited revisited.

Don't judge a guy by 1 lousy game.  At the end of the day, big men win in the playoffs and tonight in their game 7, the Lakers leaned heavily on their major advantage (size).  

Gasol:  23 points, 17 rebounds, 6 assists, 4 blocks and a steal.    

Bynum:  16 points, 18 rebounds, 6 blocks and a steal.  

Granted, Rondo ended up with a triple double in the Philly game, but MVP Kevin Garnett was far more important to that victory.  You'd lose something special by getting rid of ROndo... but you'd gain something special by adding Gasol.  We'll simply never know how good a twin tower KG/Pau team could be, but it's fun to think about.  Right now, though... I'm thrilled and proud of how well the Celtics are playing despite their numerous handicaps.  Ray and Pierce are both playing hurt.  Rondo can't score consistently... and our 35 year old big man is throwing back the clock and carrying us on his back.  Fantastic.

[hpantazo]

Pau's solid. He has a terrible match up against a guy whose less talented, more physical, more athletic and more aggressive. Doesn't change the fact that he's a stud.

That said, I'm glad we didn't give up Rondo. In my opinion he's better and he's less $, younger, and a better fit for our team and our legacy (I don't want Lakers).

those two are the big difference makers right there

[colincb]

Pau's solid. He has a terrible match up against a guy whose less talented, more physical, more athletic and more aggressive. Doesn't change the fact that he's a stud.

That said, I'm glad we didn't give up Rondo. In my opinion he's better and he's less $, younger, and a better fit for our team and our legacy (I don't want Lakers).

Pau's also on the downside of his career.  This trade made no sense for the Cs and we'd be left with no 1st string PG (and AB isn't a PG).

[LarBrd33]

Pau's solid. He has a terrible match up against a guy whose less talented, more physical, more athletic and more aggressive. Doesn't change the fact that he's a stud.

That said, I'm glad we didn't give up Rondo. In my opinion he's better and he's less $, younger, and a better fit for our team and our legacy (I don't want Lakers).

Pau's also on the downside of his career.  This trade made no sense for the Cs and we'd be left with no 1st string PG (and AB isn't a PG).

The trade didn't make much sense for the Lakers either.  They didn't REALLY need an inept shooter who can pass the ball really well.  Kobe creates his own offense and their bigs have actual post game.   Their main advantage is size (two dominant 7 footers) and that's why they rejected the offer.  This is just a theory, but I think the reason they even may have considered trading for Rondo was because they expected to trade Bynum for Dwight Howard.  Problem was, there were whispers that Dwight had no interest in re-signing with the Lakers...  probably because he didn't see himself playing very long with a couple guys in their 30s (Kobe and Pau).  I think the Lakers figured they could potentially convince Dwight to sign an extension if there was a young top 5 point guard on the team (Rondo).  When it became clear Dwight was sticking in Orlando for another year... the Rondo for Pau thing seemingly died.  

Much adoo about nothin, tho.  No reason to speculate.  TOo many variables.  Both the Celtics and Lakers are doing fine as-is.

[colincb]

Pau's solid. He has a terrible match up against a guy whose less talented, more physical, more athletic and more aggressive. Doesn't change the fact that he's a stud.

That said, I'm glad we didn't give up Rondo. In my opinion he's better and he's less $, younger, and a better fit for our team and our legacy (I don't want Lakers).

Pau's also on the downside of his career.  This trade made no sense for the Cs and we'd be left with no 1st string PG (and AB isn't a PG).

The trade didn't make much sense for the Lakers either.  They didn't REALLY need an inept shooter who can pass the ball really well.  Kobe creates his own offense and their bigs have actual post game.   Their main advantage is size (two dominant 7 footers) and that's why they rejected the offer.  This is just a theory, but I think the reason they even may have considered trading for Rondo was because they expected to trade Bynum for Dwight Howard.  Problem was, there were whispers that Dwight had no interest in re-signing with the Lakers...  probably because he didn't see himself playing very long with a couple guys in their 30s (Kobe and Pau).  I think the Lakers figured they could potentially convince Dwight to sign an extension if there was a young top 5 point guard on the team (Rondo).  When it became clear Dwight was sticking in Orlando for another year... the Rondo for Pau thing seemingly died.  

Much adoo about nothin, tho.  No reason to speculate.  TOo many variables.  Both the Celtics and Lakers are doing fine as-is.

How do you know they rejected that trade?