Compelling Argument on why Boston needs to trade Rondo now

[blink]

just another article saying he played with 3 hall of famers which boosted his stats.

tired of this argument.

The other argument is that he is less athletic because he doesnt dunk anymore. You have got to be kidding me.

I agree the dunk argument was weak.  I did find the bit about Rondo's contract situation interesting, though.   Say Rondo takes the whole season to recover from the ACL injury...

Then he comes back in 2014-15 as a sitting duck final year of his contract for a terrible Celtic team that he probably doesn't enjoy playing for.  That'd be a problem.  Even bigger problem if Rondo gets exposed when he returns as being an overhyped benefactor of hall-of-famers... we'd be in a tough position.

To me the whole thing reads like a pointed character assassination.  Rondo is currently on a very favorable contract, is injured so his trade value is down.  It makes little sense to trade him now.  If anything his numbers and value will jump as one of the few experienced players on the team when he gets back. 

I mean we all know that 'your' only way forward is to trade Rondo.  But there are other options.
Articles like this are pretty biased for whatever reason.  Why are you so adamant that there is no other way to rebuild the team without trading for Rondo right now, absolutely this moment?  I see comment after comment trade rondo for this draft pick, trade him for this rookie.  In all your comments you have never made a convincing argument to me.

[LarBrd33]

just another article saying he played with 3 hall of famers which boosted his stats.

tired of this argument.

The other argument is that he is less athletic because he doesnt dunk anymore. You have got to be kidding me.

I agree the dunk argument was weak.  I did find the bit about Rondo's contract situation interesting, though.   Say Rondo takes the whole season to recover from the ACL injury...

Then he comes back in 2014-15 as a sitting duck final year of his contract for a terrible Celtic team that he probably doesn't enjoy playing for.  That'd be a problem.  Even bigger problem if Rondo gets exposed when he returns as being an overhyped benefactor of hall-of-famers... we'd be in a tough position.

To me the whole thing reads like a pointed character assassination.  Rondo is currently on a very favorable contract, is injured so his trade value is down.  It makes little sense to trade him now.  If anything his numbers and value will jump as one of the few experienced players on the team when he gets back. 

I mean we all know that 'your' only way forward is to trade Rondo.  But there are other options.
Articles like this are pretty biased for whatever reason.  Why are you so adamant that there is no other way to rebuild the team without trading for Rondo right now, absolutely this moment?  I see comment after comment trade rondo for this draft pick, trade him for this rookie.  In all your comments you have never made a convincing argument to me.

I'm clearly not the only person who thinks trading Rondo is the best move for this franchise.  If you are confused on why some people think it's for the best... I think maybe you haven't been paying attention.

[cman88]

any team needs to start somewhere in getting a quality player to build "with" we've already got one. why trade him in search of someone who "might be"

so, lets trade our allstar PG on a bargain contract for pennys on the dollar when his trade value is lowest

[LooseCannon]

I'm clearly not the only person who thinks trading Rondo is the best move for this franchise.  If you are confused on why some people think it's for the best... I think maybe you haven't been paying attention.

I think most posters here who want to keep Rondo understand why other posters think it is better to trade him.  It's just that they also understand that the author of the article is an idiot.

[rondoallaturca]

There was nothing compelling about this argument. It was incredibly flawed and counterarguments can easily be made for every point.

[blink]

just another article saying he played with 3 hall of famers which boosted his stats.

tired of this argument.

The other argument is that he is less athletic because he doesnt dunk anymore. You have got to be kidding me.

I agree the dunk argument was weak.  I did find the bit about Rondo's contract situation interesting, though.   Say Rondo takes the whole season to recover from the ACL injury...

Then he comes back in 2014-15 as a sitting duck final year of his contract for a terrible Celtic team that he probably doesn't enjoy playing for.  That'd be a problem.  Even bigger problem if Rondo gets exposed when he returns as being an overhyped benefactor of hall-of-famers... we'd be in a tough position.

To me the whole thing reads like a pointed character assassination.  Rondo is currently on a very favorable contract, is injured so his trade value is down.  It makes little sense to trade him now.  If anything his numbers and value will jump as one of the few experienced players on the team when he gets back. 

I mean we all know that 'your' only way forward is to trade Rondo.  But there are other options.
Articles like this are pretty biased for whatever reason.  Why are you so adamant that there is no other way to rebuild the team without trading for Rondo right now, absolutely this moment?  I see comment after comment trade rondo for this draft pick, trade him for this rookie.  In all your comments you have never made a convincing argument to me.

I'm clearly not the only person who thinks trading Rondo is the best move for this franchise.  If you are confused on why some people think it's for the best... I think maybe you haven't been paying attention.

Oh I have been paying attention.  How could anyone avoid all your trade rondo now threads and comments.  I just said I disagree with your logic.  And why would you need to claim that others on this board are all for trading rondo?  Of course others woukd trade him, but that wasn't the point of your article or your comments.  Your POINT is that we need to trade Rondo NOW not later.  Heck I wouldn't be against trading rondo after his value is back up and if he isn't in for the long haul of rebuilding. 

I just think that article was a smear job, and there are other motives to it.  I haven't been convinced by your argument or that "article" to change my mind.

[Vermont Green]

I think the article is fair and accurate in assessing Rondo's strengths and flaws.  Whether or not anyone here agrees with it is not the point.  The main point is that this represents more of a league wide view of Rondo over the view on a home town Blog site.

Bottom line question is trade Rondo now when there may be some serious interest from teams with assets (Houston, Detroit) or wait.

I am on board with trading him, assuming we can get the deal we want (and I think we have a better chance now than later),

[Eja117]

I just saw this linked by Alex Kennedy on his twitter:

http://www.hoopsworld.com/the-time-to-trade-rajon-rondo-is-now

It's an interesting article.  Curious what everyone thinks.

Some of the arguments in his article is that Rondo's a poor offensive player who lead a declining offense over the past few years in spite of having above-average offensive players in KG, PIerce and Ray.  Additionally, he argues that Rondo's athleticism was already in decline prior to the injury... and that ROndo relies on his athleticism.  Most importantly, he argues that Rondo will be in a free agent in a couple years and the tanking Celtics are at a severe risk of losing rondo for nothing if they don't do something sooner rather than later.  Lots of other thoughts in there.  Check it out.

The biggest reason to trade Rondo now is his contract situation.  His deal, which pays him just short of $25 million over the next two years, was considered one of the great bargains in the NBA prior to his ACL injury, but it expires after the 2014-15 season, when he will be 29...

...Given Rondo’s previous level of performance and his reliance on already declining athleticism (more on that below), he is very unlikely to be worth his next contract.

But Rondo is an All-Star!  He led the league in assists per game the last two years!  He had 37 consecutive games of 10+ assists!  He gets triple-doubles on national TV!  All true, but I still maintain that Rondo is an overrated offensive player because of his poor shooting.  The Celtics have ranked 15th, 18th, 25th, and 24th in offense* the last four seasons, and Rondo’s offensive deficiencies have contributed mightily to that lowly offensive showing.  Until last year, Rondo shared the court with what most would consider above-average offensive players at the 2-4 spots: Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.  So how then were the Celtics so mediocre-to-bad on offense?  A partial explanation is their record-low offensive rebounding, but another is that Rondo gums up the spacing by being unable to shoot jumpers, get to the line or make the free throws he does get.

Rondo’s traditional box score numbers are lauded, but this is in large part because ancient Indian mathematicians decided to make 10 the lowest number expressed with two digits.  By PER, a method which weights all box score contributions, Rondo ranked 11th among pure point guards in 2012-13 and 17th the year before.  So his team isn’t good at offense, and his individual statistics taken as a whole are closer to average than elite. Meanwhile Rondo’s defense, once a nightly terror, now seems to wax and wane on a nightly basis as he has aged.  All told, I think Rondo has been closer to the 10th-best point guard in the league the last few years than the top of the list.*

So Rondo was already closer to good than great before his injury.  What happens as he ages coming off his ACL injury?  While the sample size is small, evidence shows that players with ACL injuries suffer the greatest declines in True Shooting Percentage (which measures shooting accounting for the effect of threes and free throws) and usage rate (which measures the percentage of team possessions the players “uses” via a shot or turnover).  Unfortunately, these are the two areas where Rondo has the least room for error.  Among point guards, he ranked 61st and 47th in TS% and 30th and 22nd in usage rate the last two years.  From watching the games, his relatively poor shooting and scoring are already a problem for the Celtics’ offense–if these get worse it could mean big problems for his game.

etc

BS. All of it. Every word.

Rondo was reason #3 we won a ring and the last few years was reason #1 or 2 we thought we might get another.

Here's another theory.  Rondo was one of the best pgs in the league who's coach was a moody little brat who held him back, played head games with him, and made sure all his offense was wiped out by tolerating nobody on the team making any effort whatsoever to get a rebound.

He's one of the best passers and defenders in the league. He is also one of the best rebounders at his position and is on a very good contract, which showed he was a team guy.

The moment he is gone there is no reason for a free agent to want to come here and he will be extremely difficult to replace. 

[RJ87]

I think the article is fair and accurate in assessing Rondo's strengths and flaws.  Whether or not anyone here agrees with it is not the point.  The main point is that this represents more of a league wide view of Rondo over the view on a home town Blog site.

Bottom line question is trade Rondo now when there may be some serious interest from teams with assets (Houston, Detroit) or wait.

I am on board with trading him, assuming we can get the deal we want (and I think we have a better chance now than later),

Meh. I wouldn't call Alex Kennedy a representative of the league's view. He's an "agenda journalist", meaning if you're an agent trying to schew things for your client or a team official trying drive down an opposing team's asking price,  this is the guy you leak things to.

[LarBrd33]

just another article saying he played with 3 hall of famers which boosted his stats.

tired of this argument.

The other argument is that he is less athletic because he doesnt dunk anymore. You have got to be kidding me.

I agree the dunk argument was weak.  I did find the bit about Rondo's contract situation interesting, though.   Say Rondo takes the whole season to recover from the ACL injury...

Then he comes back in 2014-15 as a sitting duck final year of his contract for a terrible Celtic team that he probably doesn't enjoy playing for.  That'd be a problem.  Even bigger problem if Rondo gets exposed when he returns as being an overhyped benefactor of hall-of-famers... we'd be in a tough position.

To me the whole thing reads like a pointed character assassination.  Rondo is currently on a very favorable contract, is injured so his trade value is down.  It makes little sense to trade him now.  If anything his numbers and value will jump as one of the few experienced players on the team when he gets back. 

I mean we all know that 'your' only way forward is to trade Rondo.  But there are other options.
Articles like this are pretty biased for whatever reason.  Why are you so adamant that there is no other way to rebuild the team without trading for Rondo right now, absolutely this moment?  I see comment after comment trade rondo for this draft pick, trade him for this rookie.  In all your comments you have never made a convincing argument to me.

I'm clearly not the only person who thinks trading Rondo is the best move for this franchise.  If you are confused on why some people think it's for the best... I think maybe you haven't been paying attention.

 ...Heck I wouldn't be against trading rondo after his value is back up...

And that quote explains the core reason you and I aren't on the same page.   There is no guarantee his trade value will go any higher than it already is.  He could come back and cause his trade value to plummet.  That's basically what this article is arguing. 

It's a very real possibility.

[LarBrd33]

I think the article is fair and accurate in assessing Rondo's strengths and flaws.  Whether or not anyone here agrees with it is not the point.  The main point is that this represents more of a league wide view of Rondo over the view on a home town Blog site.

Bottom line question is trade Rondo now when there may be some serious interest from teams with assets (Houston, Detroit) or wait.

I am on board with trading him, assuming we can get the deal we want (and I think we have a better chance now than later),

Right.  There's teams out there who might think Rondo is a risk worth taking right now.  There are teams out there who are selling themselves on Rondo.  Dallas had been interested.  Detroit is apparently interested.  Houston might be interested.

YOu could wait.  But you're then taking a gamble that Rondo comes back healthy, actually looks like an all-star post ACL injury, actually is able to lead a group of scrubs without KG and Pierce on the floor, etc.   And with this team being in tank-mode on a 3-5 rebuild plan... with Rondo's contract only extending 2 seasons... There's absolutely a scenario where moving Rondo right now while there is interest is the best move for this franchise.

I wouldnt' just give Rondo away.  Neither would Danny.  But if you can land a young asset, a draft pick or dump some bad contracts, you have to consider it for the "big picture" long-term health of this team.

FYI - I honestly think there's very little chance that Rondo makes the all-star team next year.  That factors into my thought process.  I don't blame anyone for disagreeing with me.

[Kane3387]

I just saw this linked by Alex Kennedy on his twitter:

http://www.hoopsworld.com/the-time-to-trade-rajon-rondo-is-now

It's an interesting article.  Curious what everyone thinks.

Some of the arguments in his article is that Rondo's a poor offensive player who lead a declining offense over the past few years in spite of having above-average offensive players in KG, PIerce and Ray.  Additionally, he argues that Rondo's athleticism was already in decline prior to the injury... and that ROndo relies on his athleticism.  Most importantly, he argues that Rondo will be in a free agent in a couple years and the tanking Celtics are at a severe risk of losing rondo for nothing if they don't do something sooner rather than later.  Lots of other thoughts in there.  Check it out.

The biggest reason to trade Rondo now is his contract situation.  His deal, which pays him just short of $25 million over the next two years, was considered one of the great bargains in the NBA prior to his ACL injury, but it expires after the 2014-15 season, when he will be 29...

...Given Rondo’s previous level of performance and his reliance on already declining athleticism (more on that below), he is very unlikely to be worth his next contract.

But Rondo is an All-Star!  He led the league in assists per game the last two years!  He had 37 consecutive games of 10+ assists!  He gets triple-doubles on national TV!  All true, but I still maintain that Rondo is an overrated offensive player because of his poor shooting.  The Celtics have ranked 15th, 18th, 25th, and 24th in offense* the last four seasons, and Rondo’s offensive deficiencies have contributed mightily to that lowly offensive showing.  Until last year, Rondo shared the court with what most would consider above-average offensive players at the 2-4 spots: Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.  So how then were the Celtics so mediocre-to-bad on offense?  A partial explanation is their record-low offensive rebounding, but another is that Rondo gums up the spacing by being unable to shoot jumpers, get to the line or make the free throws he does get.

Rondo’s traditional box score numbers are lauded, but this is in large part because ancient Indian mathematicians decided to make 10 the lowest number expressed with two digits.  By PER, a method which weights all box score contributions, Rondo ranked 11th among pure point guards in 2012-13 and 17th the year before.  So his team isn’t good at offense, and his individual statistics taken as a whole are closer to average than elite. Meanwhile Rondo’s defense, once a nightly terror, now seems to wax and wane on a nightly basis as he has aged.  All told, I think Rondo has been closer to the 10th-best point guard in the league the last few years than the top of the list.*

So Rondo was already closer to good than great before his injury.  What happens as he ages coming off his ACL injury?  While the sample size is small, evidence shows that players with ACL injuries suffer the greatest declines in True Shooting Percentage (which measures shooting accounting for the effect of threes and free throws) and usage rate (which measures the percentage of team possessions the players “uses” via a shot or turnover).  Unfortunately, these are the two areas where Rondo has the least room for error.  Among point guards, he ranked 61st and 47th in TS% and 30th and 22nd in usage rate the last two years.  From watching the games, his relatively poor shooting and scoring are already a problem for the Celtics’ offense–if these get worse it could mean big problems for his game.

etc

TP. I was just about to create this post. Even had the link on my clipboard... see below.

http://www.hoopsworld.com/the-time-to-trade-rajon-rondo-is-now

It's definitely worth reading though, and I recommend anyone that is an avid Rondo supporter to do so.

The ACL really scares me. Rondo has always been about quickness and getting past his defenders. If he can't do that now then he's just not Rondo anymore. Not without a jumper.

It's telling his shots at the rim and in the paint have drastically decreased. That's amazing. It tells about his defense too.

The contract is bothersome too because I can see Rondo just leaving in a similar way to Ray with how often he has been shopped.

All of this is why I think Dumars gets Rondo.

[EJPLAYA]

I find it funny that the Green lensed glasses homers on here can't make much of a legitimate argument rebutting the article and instead choose to just rip the guy. He makes some valid points. He doesn't try and state it is absolute fact and will happen, rather is presenting a rational thought process behind why it might make sense to trade the guy.

Kennedy argument : Facts mixed with opinions

Homers argument : Nuh Uh! You're an idiot! Rondo is the greatest player ever!!

 

[LarBrd33]

FYI, Alex Kennedy didn't actually write that article.  I just saw him link to it on his twitter.  The article is written by someone named Nate Duncan.

Alex Kennedy ‏@AlexKennedyNBA 4h

Great article by @NateDuncanNBA, where he makes the argument that the Boston Celtics need to trade Rajon Rondo now: http://tinyurl.com/krg39lg

I found it to be an interesting read, though.  It's definitely negative.  But if anything, it explains a certain viewpoint that some teams throughout the league probably share... and is probably the reason why Danny has had so much trouble trading Rondo over the years.

Nate Duncan's latest tweet:

Nate Duncan ‏@NateDuncanNBA 1h

For those Boston fans who want to keep Rondo to chase the 8th playoff spot this year, ask Milwaukee how much fun that is.

[Nerf DPOY]

FYI, Alex Kennedy didn't actually write that article.  I just saw him link to it on his twitter.  The article is written by someone named Nate Duncan.

Alex Kennedy ‏@AlexKennedyNBA 4h

Great article by @NateDuncanNBA, where he makes the argument that the Boston Celtics need to trade Rajon Rondo now: http://tinyurl.com/krg39lg

I found it to be an interesting read, though.  It's definitely negative.  But if anything, it explains a certain viewpoint that some teams throughout the league probably share... and is probably the reason why Danny has had so much trouble trading Rondo over the years.

Nate Duncan's latest tweet:

Nate Duncan ‏@NateDuncanNBA 1h

For those Boston fans who want to keep Rondo to chase the 8th playoff spot this year, ask Milwaukee how much fun that is.

The only trade attempt I've ever been aware of publicly acknowledged is the Chris Paul attempt a year and a half ago. Well, Paul is a consensus third to fifth best player in the league and a player Ainge tried to deal a prime Paul Pierce for. I feel like you're seriously reaching with the " has had so much trouble trading Rondo " assertion.