Danny wants to build around rondo, green,sully (rumor)

[Tr1boy]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

[mmmmm]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

1) I watch every single game.  Sometimes more than once.

2) I trust my lying eyes far more than I trust yours.

3) Doc preached a strategy of always guiding attackers to their left hand and into a help defender.   Rondo was a disciple.  This strategy requires others on the team defense to execute (help).   This is what my eyes watched in the games.

4) The stats show that when Rondo was on the floor with veterans who knew what the heck they were supposed to do in picking up rotations behind him, our defense was great.   When he was on the floor with a bunch of newbs who frequently and obviously blew rotations, our defense was bad.

But you go on with your compelling arguments.

[Tr1boy]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

1) I watch every single game.  Sometimes more than once.

2) I trust my lying eyes far more than I trust yours.

3) Doc preached a strategy of always guiding attackers to their left hand and into a help defender.   Rondo was a disciple.  This strategy requires others on the team defense to execute (help).   This is what my eyes watched in the games.

4) The stats show that when Rondo was on the floor with veterans who knew what the heck they were supposed to do in picking up rotations behind him, our defense was great.   When he was on the floor with a bunch of newbs who frequently and obviously blew rotations, our defense was bad.

But you go on with your compelling arguments.

don't believe your lying eyes bc the 4th point makes little to no sense

How has this newbie team without Rondo starting the last 4 or 5 games, given up 10-15 points less on avg? 

Could one big reason be Pressey/JB is playing much better defense then Rondo?  Last year , when Rondo went down, how did we give up less points with practially the same lineup left?

You should stop blaming everyone else.

[BballTim]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

  I'd guess everyone in this thread watch the games. Most people see things differently from what you're seeing and explain that not only do they disagree with you but the stats (ie unbiased measurement) show that the opposite of what you think is happening actually is.

  Imagine if I was insisting that Jeff Green was the best rebounding SF in the league. Most people would claim that wasn't the case and cite statistics that show him to be a poor rebounder. I could then list some of the rebounds I've seen him get and tell people to ignore stats and watch the game. If they continued to disagree with me I could claim they only look at stats and don't watch games. That's similar to the discussion we seem to be having.

  I don't think anyone's disagreeing that Rondo's defense is fairly poor this year. Most people able to see how this is related to his knee injury and not to his play last season.

[LooseCannon]

You're showing a lack of understanding that proper defense is not necessarily about staying in front of your man.

Insisting that it is is like claiming that rebounding technique is solely about grabbing the ball and can't include boxing out in a way that neutralizes another player at the expense of your personal rebounding stats if it gives one of your teammate's a better chance at getting the ball.

Can you admit that NBA defense is more complicated than a pick-up game at the YMCA?

[Tr1boy]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

  I'd guess everyone in this thread watch the games. Most people see things differently from what you're seeing and explain that not only do they disagree with you but the stats (ie unbiased measurement) show that the opposite of what you think is happening actually is.

  Imagine if I was insisting that Jeff Green was the best rebounding SF in the league. Most people would claim that wasn't the case and cite statistics that show him to be a poor rebounder. I could then list some of the rebounds I've seen him get and tell people to ignore stats and watch the game. If they continued to disagree with me I could claim they only look at stats and don't watch games. That's similar to the discussion we seem to be having.

  I don't think anyone's disagreeing that Rondo's defense is fairly poor this year. Most people able to see how this is related to his knee injury and not to his play last season.

Then can you explain why he played poor defense also last season? Before his injury he was healthy

[Rhyso]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

1) I watch every single game.  Sometimes more than once.

2) I trust my lying eyes far more than I trust yours.

3) Doc preached a strategy of always guiding attackers to their left hand and into a help defender.   Rondo was a disciple.  This strategy requires others on the team defense to execute (help).   This is what my eyes watched in the games.

4) The stats show that when Rondo was on the floor with veterans who knew what the heck they were supposed to do in picking up rotations behind him, our defense was great.   When he was on the floor with a bunch of newbs who frequently and obviously blew rotations, our defense was bad.

But you go on with your compelling arguments.

TP

I watched every game last year, excellent points you made there. The added fact that the roster turnover last year was HUGE, given that there were only 4 healthy players who played in the ECF in 2012 and returned the next year.

Also I'm more inclined to believe the experts who have given Rondo multiple All-team defense selections, because they sure know what they are looking for compared to forum bloggers. His lateral quickness may be horible atm, but he still pushes players to the correct position for help defenders, it's unfortunate that Sully at center can't block a shot to save his life.

[Tr1boy]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

1) I watch every single game.  Sometimes more than once.

2) I trust my lying eyes far more than I trust yours.

3) Doc preached a strategy of always guiding attackers to their left hand and into a help defender.   Rondo was a disciple.  This strategy requires others on the team defense to execute (help).   This is what my eyes watched in the games.

4) The stats show that when Rondo was on the floor with veterans who knew what the heck they were supposed to do in picking up rotations behind him, our defense was great.   When he was on the floor with a bunch of newbs who frequently and obviously blew rotations, our defense was bad.

But you go on with your compelling arguments.

TP

I watched every game last year, excellent points you made there. The added fact that the roster turnover last year was HUGE, given that there were only 4 healthy players who played in the ECF in 2012 and returned the next year.

Also I'm more inclined to believe the experts who have given Rondo multiple All-team defense selections, because they sure know what they are looking for compared to forum bloggers. His lateral quickness may be horible atm, but he still pushes players to the correct position for help defenders, it's unfortunate that Sully at center can't block a shot to save his life.

What about last year? Why was his defense so poor then?  And why did we play better defense with the same team when he went off due to injuries?

[Tr1boy]

What about last year? Why was his defense so poor then?  And why did we play better defense with the same team when he went off due to injuries?

BballTim says: Because it was everyone else's fault. Not Rondo's. 

[BASS_THUMPER]

I thought the idea was to build around the Big 3

rumor

sippin

[Rhyso]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

1) I watch every single game.  Sometimes more than once.

2) I trust my lying eyes far more than I trust yours.

3) Doc preached a strategy of always guiding attackers to their left hand and into a help defender.   Rondo was a disciple.  This strategy requires others on the team defense to execute (help).   This is what my eyes watched in the games.

4) The stats show that when Rondo was on the floor with veterans who knew what the heck they were supposed to do in picking up rotations behind him, our defense was great.   When he was on the floor with a bunch of newbs who frequently and obviously blew rotations, our defense was bad.

But you go on with your compelling arguments.

TP

I watched every game last year, excellent points you made there. The added fact that the roster turnover last year was HUGE, given that there were only 4 healthy players who played in the ECF in 2012 and returned the next year.

Also I'm more inclined to believe the experts who have given Rondo multiple All-team defense selections, because they sure know what they are looking for compared to forum bloggers. His lateral quickness may be horible atm, but he still pushes players to the correct position for help defenders, it's unfortunate that Sully at center can't block a shot to save his life.

What about last year? Why was his defense so poor then?  And why did we play better defense with the same team when he went off due to injuries?

Well as mmmmm pointed out with statistics, our defense was solid with him on the court. Sure i could say with an eye test he was getting beat more on a pick and roll and opting for the steal, but the help defense wasn't there like it had been in the past for him.

Look at the roster last year:

- Wilcox and Green missing a whole year. Do you think that had a positive effect on the teams defense with their conditioning being low?
- Bradley missing the first 2 months or so of the season, then he comes back and 2 weeks later Rondo goes down. He is a great defender, and the fact that he comes back and basically replaces Rondo is going to improve our defense because he is a better defender than Rondo (Also because he had the energy to focus on defense and not run the offense).
- New additions in Lee and Terry. Lee was not a good defender to start the year, and had the pressure of replacing Ray. It didn't work, he got buried on the bench by the end of it, so Lee can take some blame there too. Not to mention Terry is no DPoY either, Ray probably plays better defense than him.

You could look at this as excuses for Rondo, or you could say that these facts impacted the teams defense and made Rondo look bad. I say more so the latter, because Rondo is a proven defender unlike any new player that was brought on that team, and although he may have cheated plays for steals it was under docs instructions.

[Tr1boy]

you don't believe Rondo was a bad defender last year?

He let guys get by him one after another after another (just like how he let Calderon the last game). He takes risks to steal the ball alot of times instead of just staying in front of his man. 

You keep spitting out stats to try to backup your claim. Instead of actually watching the game and even watching the end score.

Without Rondo last year we gave up less points. With pressey starting the last 5 games, we have been a better defensive team. And yes alot of it has to do with Rondo. You let the other pg get through and the wheels falls off for the whole team

1) I watch every single game.  Sometimes more than once.

2) I trust my lying eyes far more than I trust yours.

3) Doc preached a strategy of always guiding attackers to their left hand and into a help defender.   Rondo was a disciple.  This strategy requires others on the team defense to execute (help).   This is what my eyes watched in the games.

4) The stats show that when Rondo was on the floor with veterans who knew what the heck they were supposed to do in picking up rotations behind him, our defense was great.   When he was on the floor with a bunch of newbs who frequently and obviously blew rotations, our defense was bad.

But you go on with your compelling arguments.

TP

I watched every game last year, excellent points you made there. The added fact that the roster turnover last year was HUGE, given that there were only 4 healthy players who played in the ECF in 2012 and returned the next year.

Also I'm more inclined to believe the experts who have given Rondo multiple All-team defense selections, because they sure know what they are looking for compared to forum bloggers. His lateral quickness may be horible atm, but he still pushes players to the correct position for help defenders, it's unfortunate that Sully at center can't block a shot to save his life.

What about last year? Why was his defense so poor then?  And why did we play better defense with the same team when he went off due to injuries?

Well as mmmmm pointed out with statistics, our defense was solid with him on the court. Sure i could say with an eye test he was getting beat more on a pick and roll and opting for the steal, but the help defense wasn't there like it had been in the past for him.

Look at the roster last year:

- Wilcox and Green missing a whole year. Do you think that had a positive effect on the teams defense with their conditioning being low?
- Bradley missing the first 2 months or so of the season, then he comes back and 2 weeks later Rondo goes down. He is a great defender, and the fact that he comes back and basically replaces Rondo is going to improve our defense because he is a better defender than Rondo (Also because he had the energy to focus on defense and not run the offense).
- New additions in Lee and Terry. Lee was not a good defender to start the year, and had the pressure of replacing Ray. It didn't work, he got buried on the bench by the end of it, so Lee can take some blame there too. Not to mention Terry is no DPoY either, Ray probably plays better defense than him.

You could look at this as excuses for Rondo, or you could say that these facts impacted the teams defense and made Rondo look bad. I say more so the latter, because Rondo is a proven defender unlike any new player that was brought on that team, and although he may have cheated plays for steals it was under docs instructions.

Good post. But i disagree

AB and Lee were just as good as stealers as Rondo last season. But they still guarded their man and got many steals.

Again with the same exact team

[D.o.s.]

I know BballTim is fond of bringing up Rondo's all-defense awards, but my suspicion is that any defensive accolades for Rondo are squarely in the past tense, and help us evaluate his play in the present about as much as you might infer.

  Is this similar to your suspicion that Rondo's play in his first few games back from injury was at an unsustainably high level?

That's the opposite of my suspicion, which was that the Rondo we see around the ASB is the Rondo that'll be here to stay.

Which, frankly, seems about right. I'll settle for a guy who, on a good shooting night, can go ~19-6-11.

And, to be fair, a 103Drtg is a Ron Artest level defender, but we'll see what happens over the rest of this season.

[D.o.s.]

I think it still remains to be seen if either Sullinger or Rondo are good defenders, although I'm too busy to check their defensive numbers from this year right now.

  Rondo's got about 7 years of better than average numbers to go along with his 4 years on all-defense teams. He has a couple of top 5 finishes for DPOY as well. Aside from all of that, it's a close call.

The issue with Rondo is he wasn't a plus defender his last healthy year. Wasn't putting the effort in consistently, in my view because of the huge burden on him offensively.

Add to that his injury and I'm not sure we're see all-defense Rondo again consistently.

I disagree with the assessment in bold.

Rondo played in a variety of 5-man units that season:  Here are the 6 he played the most minutes in (the only ones with >50 minutes) and their defensive rating:

Min  Unit             DRtg (points per possession)
221   RR+JT+PP+BB+KG   .99
122   RR+AB+PP+BB+KG   .98
 78   RR+CL+PP+BB+KG  1.15
 77   RR+JT+PP+BB+CW  1.01
 62   RR+JT+PP+JG+KG   .91
 53   RR+JT+PP+KG+JC   .99

 
So, basically in the main units that he played in - which account for 613 of Rondo's 1423 minutes played last year, the team had an excellent DRtg in all but ONE unit.

The rest of Rondo's minutes were scattered across a wide variety of units with very small amounts of minutes and a wide variety of defensive ratings.   Rondo was the starter who stayed on the floor with the various bench units the most through the first half of the season.   Most of the 'bad' defensive minutes were from units used in the Fall that had things like a front court of Bass plus then-rookie Sullinger.   A LOT of his bad defensive units had Courtney Lee on them.  None of his best units (of significant minutes) did.

Lee was terrible at picking up help rotations in Doc's defense last year and ultimately got benched for it.

I don't believe Rondo was a bad defender at all last year.  The team he was playing on had defensive struggles though.   Especially when multiple veterans (KG, PP, JT, RR, BB & JG) were not on the floor.  As long as their were 3 or 4 of those guys on the floor, things usually held together.  But if not, things were often ugly on defense.

That's interesting.


In other news, Rondo's Drtg in 2006-2007 was 103. That dropped to 98 in 2008. I think we can figure out why. It climbed back to the hundreds for every year after that, (aside from 11-12) hitting 103 in 2009-2010 and 12-13.

His Drtg (small sample size of 9 games) currently sits at 103.

as an aside: His defensive win shares have also declined every year since KG's knee injury.

I know BballTim is fond of bringing up Rondo's all-defense awards, but my suspicion is that any defensive accolades for Rondo are squarely in the past tense, and help us evaluate his play in the present about as much as you might infer.

Which is really what I mean by "wait and see if Rondo's a good defender." A good/willing defender moving forward.

If your suggestion is that KG makes everybody a better defender, then I'm not going to argue against that.

But if you'll notice the top three units listed, it isn't the addition or removal of KG that is different in the one bad lineup.

KG may make everyone a better defender, but that doesn't mean others aren't good defenders and bad defenders.

Rondo's DRtg before KG may say more about how bad certain guys on that 2006-2007 team were on defense.   Rondo was also a rookie that season.

Heck, I just did a scan on 2-man units from 2006-07 that got at least 200 minutes together:

RR+Gomes      885.1    109.8
RR+Delonte    217.8    103.6
RR+Perkins    785.8    103.5
RR+G.Green    904.9    103.2
RR+Telfair    392.6    103.2
RR+Scal       405.6    102.4
RR+Pierce     565.3    102.2
RR+Big Al     981.2    101.3
RR+A. Ray     437.4    100.8
RR+Powe       421.2     98.9
RR+Szczerbiak 209.9     98.0


Now, if you look in turn at Ryan Gomes' numbers, they are pretty awful:

Gomes+Scal        296.2   117.6
Gomes+Szczerbiak  568.9   113.9
Gomes+G.Green     934.6   113.7
Gomes+Delonte    1235.9   113.0
Gomes+Tony        334.9   111.4
Gomes+Pierce      930.0   111.9
Gomes+Big Al     1323.3   110.2
Gomes+RR          885.1   109.8
Gomes+Telfair     946.6   109.4
Gomes+Perk        901.5   108.8
Gomes+A. Ray      359.0   107.2
Gomes+Powe        230.8   100.7


Wow -- that's just bad.  And he was on the floor a LOT!  2275 minutes for Ryan that season.   Half of Rondo's minutes were with Ryan on the floor with him.

In the 946 minutes Rondo was on the floor in 2006-2007 WITHOUT Ryan Gomes, his DRtg was 96.6.

'Just sayin...

Aside:  Kinda makes one pretty nostalgic for Leon ...

Right. I don't think Rondo's a bad defender, I just don't know if he'll be a good defender yet.

Which is a loose choice of words, obviously, because it's not like he's a matador out there. Good as in relation to his previous levels. The same way we judge any other player coming back from injury against themselves.

[D.o.s.]

Triboy, honest questions:

Do you still believe that David Lee is a good defender?

Do you think that David Lee is a better defender than Rondo?