Rondo is at least Paul's equal at this point, and will absolutely be better going forward.
That's nonsense.
No, it's not.
It absolutely is. I want to pose a serious question to you, BBallTim and Celtics18. You three seem to legitimately believe that Rondo is either on Chris Paul's level or his equal. BBallTim is borderline stalking me on this forum with his pro-Rondo rebuttals to my comments. It's all in good fun, but I have a serious question for you guys...
We're at the point where I'm not going to convince you one way or the other and you aren't going to convince me one way or the other. We can keep arguing back-and-forth about this endlessly and honestly I'm tired of it. From my side, I'll say that Chris Paul is widely considered to be the greatest point guard alive.... a player without flaws. Those outside of Boston tend to agree with me. We can both acknowledge that Rondo is fantastic and is coming off his best season to date. It's interesting, then, that Chris Paul was All-NBA 1st team... Russell Westbrook and Tony Parker were All-NBA 2nd team... and Rajon Rondo was All-NBA 3rd team. Granted, that proves nothing other than the fact that the widely acknowledged consensus is that I'm on the winning side of this argument... and yes, I realize that there are videos out there where Charles Barkley uses hyperbole to say "Rondo is the best point guard alive right now"... he's said the same thing about Chris Paul and Tony Parker at various points this season. Most would acknowledge that Derrick Rose is above Rondo when he gets healthy as well.
So I mean... we could sit here and point out that Chris Paul is less than a year older than Rondo, is a vastly superior scorer by a wide margin, is just as good a defender (in fact he's lead the league in steals more often than Rondo... including this year), is called the best "leader" in all of basketball, is just as good a distributor as Rondo (he's lead the league in assists more times than Rondo), is more consistent than Rondo, has the consistent ability to take over games late, is so good that even our own Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers suggested that Rondo should feel "honored" that his name was even coming up in trade rumors for Chris Paul, etc... but it's not going to change your opinion. Alternatively, you can point out that Rondo was great in the playoffs against Mario Chalmers and Jeff Teague, averaged a couple more assists than Chris Paul this year and is "starting to develop mediocre mid-range shooting ability" and it's not going to change what I know about either player.
SO here's my question: What does Chris Paul need to do in your eyes for you to concede that he is better than Rondo? ... Honest question. I want to know what you need to see from Chris Paul for your opinion to be changed.
On the flip side, I'll offer the following: What does Rajon Rondo need to do in my eyes for me to concede that he's on Rondo's level? ...
My Honest Answer: "I, LarBrd33, will concede that Rajon Rondo is on the same level as Chris Paul when I see him post averages comparable to: 22.8 points, 11 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 2.8 steals, 50% shooting, 36% from three and 87% from the line in 38.5 minutes per game for at least 78 games." ... If Rondo can do that in the post-"Big 3" era and lead a team to 55+ wins, I'll be convinced (those were Paul's averages a few years ago when he was the main dog in New Orleans) ... I think we'll know the answer to this within the next 5 years. I'm not going anywhere... in the event I'm proven wrong, I'll post a public apology.
So what's your answer? What do you need to see from Chris Paul to make you take off the green-tinted goggles?... is it as simple as seeing him win a championship as a role playing 4th best player on a team with 3 hall of famers... or is it something else?
Well done! I'll give you credit for
finally giving some reasons for why you believe Chris Paul is hands down the better player than Rajon Rondo. Up until now your responses have all been of the "because I say so and everyone else, but you silly homers, agrees" variety.
The main reason that I believe that Rondo is at least on Chris Paul's level is due to health. Paul has two surgically repaired knees, and while he's bounced back somewhat nicely from this, it does appear to make him a more brittle player.
I won't argue that Chris Paul hasn't been a considerably better player in the past, but this past post-season Rajon Rondo appears to have caught up and be poised to pass him.
I know it's extremely rare for a player to come into the league as a non-superstar role player and be able to turn himself into a superstar level talent over time. There are a few examples off the top of my head. All of them, coincidentally, also point guards: Steve Nash, John Stockton, and to a certain extent, Tony Parker. Rajon Rondo clearly seems to be following in those footsteps. He's knocking down the door, and quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if he's still improving.
The other thing about Rondo that I'm starting to notice is that at 6'1", 180 maybe he's really starting to learn to save himself for the post-season. Not that he's terrible in the regular season. He had a very good one this last year, but come post-season time he takes it to another level. All the complaints that pop up about how he's dogging it half the time may be due to the fact that he's smart enough to recognize that if he wants to stay healthy and have lots of playoff success and a long career, that he can't go all out for 36+ minutes of every game during the regular season. I'll take that. As long as he's dishing assists and running the show and leading the team to a playoff berth, he can conserve some of that energy if it means we'll get playoff performances from him like the ones we've started to grow accustomed to.
Chris Paul is undeniably a great player. He came into the league ready to be a superstar from day one. That gives him an upper hand on Rondo who had to develop some of his game for the first couple of seasons of his career. Rondo's definitely been lucky in other ways. He got to apprentice under Doc Rivers with three NBA great scorers. They surely taught him a lot about how to run an offense and how to get the ball to scorers in places where they can do their thing. I think the place where some folks have a differing opinion is that many think that once Pierce, Garnett, and Allen are gone, all of a sudden Rajon Rondo will forget how to be the floor general that he's become. That, to me, is a silly theory. The NBA is full of guys who can score the rock. I think it's much more likely that Rondo will be able to use the skills that he's honed alongside his hall of fame teammates to make good scorers around him even better scorers. I think we are already seeing signs of that, and young players who get to play big minutes with Rondo and be his main options will benefit greatly from that.
This post has gotten longer and ramblier than I meant it to, and I probably haven't even specifically answered the question. I forget what it was. "What does Chris Paul have to do to prove that he's better than Rondo?" That was it, wasn't it. He has to keep doing it at the level he's been doing it for the past six seasons, and hope that Rondo, instead of continuing to improve like he's done every year, actually starts to regress at a healthy 25 years of age.
Good luck, Chris.
Topic: Not saying I want to trade Rondo, but if we did, what would you demand? (Read 17663 times)