That's the problem--Rondo's never 'lead' the team in the Chris Paul/LeBron James/Allen Iverson/post-Westbrook injury Kevin Durant/James Harden fashion.
Of course he has. People just underrate him because he doesn't score a lot of points every game, because people are stupid enough to think scoring is the only way to lead a team in basketball.
Think about it this way. Lebron scores 24.5 points per game, plus 6.8 assists (which is another 13 points per game). So Lebron generates approximately 37 points per game for his team's offense.
Rondo only scores 13 or 14 points per game, but also gets 11 or 12 assists. So he is generating approximately 35 to 36 points per game for the C's offense.
A) nice job not quite calling me stupid. That's clever, right there.
I'll give you a great stat for what we're trying to look at: Usage rate. Since you're not stupid, I'm not going to bother explaining usage rate to you, but I will say that it's a much better indicator of being a first option than assists + points.
Here you go:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=1&p1=rondora01&y1=2012&p2=jamesle01&y2=2013&p3=hardeja01&y3=2013&p4=paulch01&y4=2013&p5=rosede01&y5=2012#advanced::none
If KG and Pierce retire in this off season and Rondo comes back healthy from his ACL tear, we'll see how far he can take the team as it's undisputed best player.
Usage is a better stat for what you're trying to look at but you're completely missing his point. In the 2012 playoffs Rondo scored or assisted almost as many total points per game as LeBron, and the highest percentage of his team's points of anyone in that postseason. You're saying scoring points is the only measure of how much offense a player creates. That's not really true.
This year we had 6 playoff games and we scored 31 or less in a half 4 times. I don't think that happened at all last year with Rondo playing. Also, look at what happened to KG's offense in this year's playoffs compared to last year's. It's not that he can't shoot anymore, it's that the player that assisted half his baskets in last year's playoffs was wearing a suit to the games.
I agree with your second paragraph. And I like Rondo, and have no desire to trade him/ship him out.
But, just for fun, let's do that math on Chris Paul's season this year and Rondo's season last year, when it "became clear that Rondo was the best player."
CP: 16.9 points, 9.7 Assists, 48% from the field, 88% from the line.
RR: 11.9 points, 11.7 Assists, 44% from the field,59% from the line
Using the basic equation from above: Chris Paul more points (through points and assists) to his team during the regular season.
BUT WAIT!
We're Celtics fans. We know Rondo coasts through the regular season.
So let's use the playoffs, CP3 from this season and RR from the last, when both of them were playing at a high level as the guy who makes the offense go. No regular season coasting here!
Chris Paul: 22.8 points, 6.3 assists, 53% from the field, 89% from the line.
Rajon Rondo:17.4 points, 11.9 assists, 46% from the field, 69% from the line.
Using the equation from above. Rondo is responsible for more points during the playoffs.
So, as of last year, Rondo can be better than Chris Paul, if your sample size is the post season. And Chris Paul can be better than Rondo, if your sample size is the regular season (and this holds up across both of their careers).
Moving forward, I hope Rondo can keep his excellence up without KG and Pierce.
Topic: Another reason why Rondo is better than Chris Paul (Read 14506 times)