Very comfortable.
Why wouldn't I want to build around an All Star? Rondo just needs three things IMO to have a perfect team.
1.) A big (PF or C) who can hit midrange jumpers to play pick and pop with.
2.) A scoring wing. A guy who can create his own shots once the offense breaks down and who can shoot jumpers at a decent rate.
3.) A shooting wing who can park outside and hit threes consistently and if we're lucky, efficiently.
Give Rondo an open court to work with and a guy who can carry the offensive load with him, you have a great team that jells well. Of course it helps more if those three can do more things, such as defend, rebound at a high rate and stuff, but I think that's how you rebuild around a PG who can easily get to the basket and find open looks for his teammates. And I think with the assets that we have, we can find those players.
Yeah, I agree with you Yoki. I think it can be done but its eerily similar how the players you said compare to this eras "big 3"
1) Outside PF/C who can hit mid-range jumpers: Kevin Garnett
2) A scoring wing: Paul Pierce
3) A shooting wing who can park outside: Ray Allen
Is this what we're use to seeing? Or what Rondo really needs to be effective?
Those 3 things are basically what every title team of the last 25 or so years has (not a Rondo type player for the record).
The question I have for Yoki and others like him and that is how do you go about acquiring those players with Rondo on the team? That is why I am fully in the move Rondo camp, as I just don't see it as being possible in the next couple of seasons (which is when you have Rondo on the right side of 30 or at all since he can leave as a free agent in 2 seasons).
Don't we have about 4 first round picks in the next two years? A big expiring contract in Kris Humphries?
We have assets to land one or two of those guys. We also have young players who can very well develop into those players. Why do we have to move Rondo, who's an elite PG that not a lot of teams have. A player who showed he can take over games. We need to give him help, and we have assets to get him help (picks, expirings, Gerald Wallace, Jeff Green, young players with potential). It just makes it better if the players we acquire fits the style of helps Rondo maximize his skills.
If you think it can't be done in two seasons, then I disagree and think you're selling Danny Ainge GM abilities short. He turned the Celtics into champions in 2008 in one fell swoop with assets like what we have. I don't see why he cant do it again.
We had significantly better assets in 2007 and we also had a significantly better building block in Pierce.
I agree with this. And also... we're basically at the ground level of a rebuild. We aren't comparing 2007 to 2013. If anything we're comparing 2003 to 2013. In 2003 when Ainge took over, he dumped Walker and started collecting assets. Pierce was only 25. Over the course of the next 5 years, Ainge collected assets and built around his young star... eventually pushing all of his chips in on KG and Ray.
Take away all of our extra draft picks and get rid of all the players under 25 that aren't any better than JR Bremer we'd be in the same spot we were in 2003. Obviously we're much farther along than that.
Yeah we are pretty much 2004 after Ainge came in and moved Walker and others and added a bunch of young players and an extra pick or two (Davis, Banks, Perkins, Brown, Welsh, Mihm, Hunter). Of course we still don't have a 26 yr old Paul Pierce on the team.
We're probably a year or two ahead of that. Clearly you don't see why what Rondo does for a team is as valuable as scoring, but if you compare Paul's career achievements to Rondo's (both up to the age Rondo was in 11/12 before the knee injury) it's not hard to notice the scales probably tilt in Rondo's favor.
I wholly disagree with that contention. Pierce in 2004 was a much better piece, had proven more than capable to be a #1 option on a playoff winning team, etc. More so than Rondo (who I recognize has played very well at times in the playoffs but has never been a focal point of a team like Pierce had). There is a difference between being an after thought on the offensive end (which really is what Rondo has been) and being the #1 guy that everyone on the other side focuses on. That was Pierce.
Pierce 02/03 playoff numbers were basically 27/9/7/2. Not the most efficient scorer by any stretch, but a monster post-season for that second round team. The year before that on the ECF team in his first playoffs Pierce was good as well at basically 24.5/8.5/4/2. People always seem to forget that before Ainge the Celtics existed and Pierce has always been a monster, and not just in the playoffs but the regular season as well.
At that time, Pierce was a far better asset, building block, whatever you want to call it then Rondo has ever been or ever will be.
We've been through many playoff series where the opposing coaches talked game after game about how they needed to find a way to stop Rondo, why they'd failed to contain him in the previous game and what changes they were making to their defense to slow him down going forward. Either you don't follow the team closely enough to know this or it somehow translates in your head to "Rondo's an after thought on offense". Go figure. And I haven't forgotten the way PP played in those playoffs, I just also remember things like Rondo scoring or assisting a higher percentage of his team's points than anyone else in the 2012 playoffs as well.
And where's your evidence that PP was a far better asset than Rondo?
It's almost like coaches get hit softball questions about up and coming/popular players during timeouts and such to kill time and give people like Doris Burke a reason to collect a paycheck.
I'd imagine that the question of "how do you stop Paul Pierce" was a big one in 2004, too.
I'm not saying it wouldn't have been a big question in 2004, but I'm sure you'd agree that claiming PP was an afterthought on offense when opposing coaches answered those questions on a regular basis would be fairly ridiculous.
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
It sounds like a bit of a cop out, but I genuinely believe that what Rondo does to make the team better really isn't covered by metrics. It's like ****ography--you know it when you see it, and I don't think there's a single Celtics fan that watched the game last night who didn't see how much better Rondo makes our team.
Obviously we disagree on the finer details regarding his worth around the league, but he's far and away our best player, and our team is suffering without him. I'd put him on the same level as Dirk and 'Melo--star talent, but specialized enough that you need the right guys for them to make any serious post-season noise.
edit: looks like the four letter word for adult entertainment got hit by the CB censor wall.
Topic: How comfortable are you building around Rajon Rondo? (Read 35611 times)