I suspect that my past comments on Rondo have been viewed as "critical". It is a tricky thing though. Is it critical to say I don't think Rondo is a good as Chris Paul or that he is not the best player on a team that has Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett?
The OP did provide a clear metric. What would it take for me to consider Rondo a franchise or build around player. My gauge for that is simple. He has to shoot better. That will not be proven by a FG% but rather it will be evidenced by when opposing teams stop sagging off him and actually cover him.
The most important aspect of making teammates better is not how many lobs you dish but rather how much space you create for them. Franchise PGs draw defensive attention to them everywhere, off picks, driving, spot up shooting; and by drawing defensive attention, they create space for others. With more space, other players shoot better.
With Rondo, if he has the ball, his defender sags and goes under all picks. When he doesn't have the ball, his defender sags as far off him as rules will allow. The result is that Rondo creates negative space for the rest of the team and actually makes it harder for them to contribute.
Rondo needs to shoot better and have a quicker release on his outside shot. If he improves in these areas, defenses will than have to adjust. That is when Rondo will really change the way he can impact the game.
But your criteria then, is pretty much totally subjective, unless you are going to give us your strict definition of when defenses are 'sagging' and when Rondo is simply 'open'. How often is this really happening?
Going over/under picks is not a useful metric there -- doesn't the pick setter get credit? What if that's a reflection of just plain stupid defense?
I find it mind-boggling to think that a player should be knocked for being smart enough to prefer to take shots when open rather than when contested.
Ultimately, if the shot goes in, it goes in. If a defense has sagged and you are smart enough to recognize that and shoot the open shot, it doesn't make the made shot worth any less than if they were in your face and you foolishly let fly a prayer that happened to go in.
To arbitrarily assert that shooting efficiency (FG%) is insufficient in your eyes for measuring whether a player is 'shooting better' kinda sets the bar: Arbitrary.
I disagree. I don't think it is arbitrary at all. If you watch the game, you can see in an instant what the opposing coach's game plan is against Rondo and how they are willing to give a wide open shot for Rondo in order to better protect against almost any other offensive weapon the Celtics would have on the court.
And my case for don't believe stats is Ben Wallace. He is a career 0.474 FG% in over 1,000 games. If you looked at the Stat and never saw him play, you would say he must have been a pretty good shooter. In fact he was one of the worst shooters in the history of the game.
Wallace and Rondo are different but have many similarities. Both are freakishly talented in certain aspects of the game but also have glaring flaws. Both have been key pieces on championship teams.
For Rondo to take it to the next level, the point isn't his FG%.
But the difference between Wallace and Rondo is something we have FG% information for.
We know that Wallace took all but a tiny fraction of his shots directly at the rim.
We know that Rondo takes about a third of his shots between 16-23 feet. Those are jump shots.
And we know that he makes those jumpers at an above average rate (FG%), year in and year out - in fact at a fantastic KG-like 48% last season. That was tied for 3rd highest rate (with Jack) for all full-time PGs from that range last season. Only Chris Paul and Steve Nash shot a higher rate (50%) from that range.
Yet he gets somehow no credit for that because you arbitrarily get to claim that he only took those as 'open' jumpers?
Are we supposed to give credit to the long list of supposedly better 'shooters' like Deron Williams, Russell Westbrook, Monta Ellis, Ty Lawson, Brandon Jennings, etc., etc. -- not one of which shot better than 40% from that range? Heck most of those guys were below league average (39.5%) from that range.
Just because -- oh, they took some of those as 'contested' shots??? That is supposed to be a _good_ thing?
That's crazy.
Taking low percentage shots HURTS YOUR TEAM.
It results in misses.
Misses get grabbed by the defense over 2/3 of the time.
I swear to god, there should be a stat right next to the TO column that was TO+ == TOs + 2/3*misses. Because THAT is the real tally of how often players (who take bad shots) are giving the ball up to the defense.
I mean, jeezus, a 'shooter' like Monta Ellis, even though he shot a miserable 34% from that range last year, kept chucking it up there, 403 total times --- missing 266 times! The defenses grabbed the rebound of those missed shots roughly 180 times. That is just dumb basketball.
That's a tangible penalty that in my opinion far outweighs your dubious 'spacing' benefit that these 'shooters' supposedly are creating by their lousy ... err... contested shot selection.
You assert that defenses don't fear Rondo's shot so they play off him to take away his dribble, collapse space away from his teammates and give him the jumper. It's not working because he shot those jumpers at way above the league average rate.
The flip side of that dubious argument is that they don't fear the dribble of those other players and play in their face, making them miss more. They also believe those players will stupidly try to force their shots despite being guarded closely. It's clearly working because those guys all shot at lousy rates.
Whatever. This is just silly.
You can keep your shooters. I'll take the smart basketball player.
Topic: what does Rondo have to do this year to not be criticized? (Read 24524 times)