I'm not an expert so don't take my word as the gospel. I'm just giving you my interpretation of what others have said over the years.
Rondo's biggest weakness has been that he's somewhat of a liability on offense if he doesn't have the ball. He's a below average shooter. Prior to his injury he seemed to be improving, but defenders don't respect his shot... they often slack off him entirely. But back before his injury, Rondo was really good at penetrating with his quickness/athleticism and finishing in the lane. So it seemed to me that there had been a push to surround Rondo with shooters. You can't pack the lane with low post players, because it prevents Rondo from penetrating. If there are low post players in the lane, that mean's there are post defenders in the lane... and thus it's difficult for Rondo to drive without getting swatted.
So the idea had been to get big men who could shoot mid-range shots. That's KG's game. KG wasn't a post player. He knocked down mid-range shots. Having a center who pulled defenders out of the paint was great for Rondo. Meanwhile, we invested a ton of time in teaching Glen Davis how to knock down mid-range shots for that very reason... and when Davis proved to be inconsistent, we traded for Brandon Bass. The one thing Brandon Bass does well is knock down mid-range shots. We also obviously benefited from having arguably the most dangerous shooter in the world out there with Rondo... Ray Allen. Having Ray spread the floor was great for Rondo. Paul Pierce was a "jack of all trades" on offense and commanded attention at all times.
Really then, if you were building a perfect team around Rondo, you'd want a star shooter like Ray, a star offensive player like Pierce... and two bigs who could pull defenders out of the paint (KG and Bass). That allowed Rondo to control the ball most of the time, and if the offense was moving correctly he'd always have a weapon to kick the ball to for an open shot. Tons of assists. If defenders were sticking with their man, Rondo had the option of burning his defender and going into the paint... which was open thanks to his big men shooters.
I seem to think that was what draft experts were referring to when they said that Ainge drafting Kelly Olynyk signals that Boston is leaning towards keeping Rondo. Olynyk is a poor defender, but he projects to be a 7 footer who can knock down shots from any range. That fits in well with the kind of player Rondo needs to be successful.
It was interesting that last year prior to his injury, Boston was actually below .500. I don't know how much of that you can blame on losing Ray... but it's interesting to note that guys like Jason Terry need the ball in order to be successful. If Terry had the ball, nobody is respecting Rondo enough to open up space for Terry. This just goes back to the idea that Rondo is kind of a liability if he isn't holding the ball at all times. And this is partially why I was concerned that Rondo and Jeff Green wouldn't really work that well since Jeff Green seemed to be at his best when he was allowed to create for himself and penetrate into the lane. It might be an overblown concern, but it's not like ROndo would be a serious threat to knock down a three if Green kicked it out to him.
This all forms the crux of why I don't think you can build a team around Rondo as the best player. He's a very good player who often has amazing games... but he's a little overrated and might be a bit of a product of the players he has had around him. We'll see what happens, I guess.
The counter-argument to this is that our offense looked it's very best with a lineup of Rondo, Ray, Pierce, KG and Shaq. But even at Shaq's age, Shaq was still Shaq. It was impossible for that guy not to get into the low post.
The second counter-argument to this is, "yah, but what about when we had Perk, etc"... but those teams were never really "Rondo" teams. We weren't successful because of our offense... we were successful, because we had the best defense in the league. A defense built around Kevin Garnett.
Nice.
The other side of the whole thing, though, is that Rondo is just too darn good, and it shouldn't be that hard to get 3-and-D guys to put around him, and small ball-type pick-and-pop guys like Bass (or any face-up Eurobig, right?) will probably look pretty good, so long as they don't have hands like Melo, Blount, Kwame Brown, etc.
In 08, Ray, Pierce, and KG were too good to not score if they shared and cared and got along, which they did. That group could get away with non-scoring Rondo and Perk (but went with Posey instead of Perk at the end quite often).
So here we are talking giddy about the prospects and talent 2-3 years from now, while we have an allstar starter in Rondo, a re-budding star in JGreen who now has plenty of headroom to do as much as he can (no Durant/Pierce ahead of him). Crash seems like the perfect new Posey; so what if he's overpaid and has 3 years; he might be the perfect fit...could be, at least.
Green isn't a ballhandler, but can thrive at those infamous "one dribble drives" that pierce used to use from the elbow when he used to be explosive off the bounce, and Rondo can surely get it to him at the elbow moving off a screen from KO or Sully, just like they play they ran for Pierce for 9 years, right?
So we have an allstar PG, 1st team defense SG, budding star SF, supersub 6th man swing F in Crash, great pick/pop PF in Bass, all-around talent and double-double machine in Sully, and 7th man scoring threat in KO, plus spare parts, going into camp,
AND PEOPLE ARE TALKING LOTTERY INSTEAD OF PLAYOFFS?
IN JULY???
Topic: Building around Rajon Rondo. Who fits? (Read 6599 times)