Rajon Rondo's March

[BballTim]

We all knew Rondo was going to keep getting his assist numbers -- the bigger difference is that Rondo's getting his numbers on a (mostly) losing team.

  You must be fairly new here if you haven't seen loads of posts attributing Rondo's assists to the great shooters he was around or claiming things like "you could stick most point guards on a team full of HOFers and they'd get as many assists as Rondo" or the like. You'll hear plenty of claims that people expected Rondo to get as many or almost as many assists without the big three from people who have been saying the opposite for years, in fact we're already seeing posts like that.

Eh... You keep suggesting I claimed his assists were due to Ray Allen.  Find me a quote.  Pretty sure you misinterpreted what I said.

  I'm fairly certain that not only did you talk about how easy it was for Rondo to get assists playing with Ray, but at some point you even admitted that you were surprised that he didn't skip a beat with Bradley starting over Ray. I'm not going to wade through a year and a half of your "Rondo sucks" posts to find them though. There are no doubt thousands of them.

[BballTim]

Here's the sequel thread to "Rajon Rondo's February":  http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=69934.msg1631531#msg1631531

Based on his February, it was proclaimed that Rondo's shooting was "much improved".

Here's his stats for March:

11.4 points, 11.1 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.3 steals - 36.8 minutes - 37%/24%/56% shooting

Pretty turrible shootin.  Thoughts?

To me, it seems he's as bad a shooter as ever, but now he's a terrible finisher as well.  This is partially because he's coming off an injury... partially, because he's no longer sharing the court with 3 hall of fame champs carrying the offensive load and drawing defensive attention.   Collectively for the season, his 3P and FT shooting is as bad as ever.  His overall FG% is a career low.

  We'll see how much of it's due to his coming back from injury next year. Hopefully your claim that he's missing shots because he's not playing with the big three will prove to be as accurate as all of your posts claiming that his being on the court with those guys was the main reason he got all those assists.

It'll only be a matter of time before he calls Bass a future hall of famer

"I mean...Bass is practically a hall of famer if you're just talking mid-range shots. Case still stands - Rondo can only get assists with hall of famers and is overrated."

I just Lol'd

There are some that Rondo will never please, people will always take shots at him and gripe about how he's overrated because their minds are made up already.

With that said, there's no question he's shooting badly but he's still managing to impact the game in other ways. 11.1 assists (also he averaged 9.9 assists for February - remember when people said he'd never be able to crack double digit assists without the Big Three?) and 5.6 rebounds (not too shabby for an over the hill, 6'1" PG with a bum knee).

All in all, Rondo's up and down play has been about what I expected so far. Would I like his percentages to be higher? Sure, but this season has been more about process than results for the entire team and I'm a bit more interested in the types of shots he's taking. He's clearly more comfortable being a facilitator than a scorer, but is he willing to be more aggressive in finding his own offense?

All these are points great points and I've lol'd as well. "Rondo can't play without the big three" yet he still finds a way to average 11 assists per game? Give me a break people.

Yeah it's hilarious... he's leading us to the 4th worst record in the entire NBA.  High comedy.  At some point he's going to have to adjust.  He's averaging 9.5 assists... which is 1 more than I expected.  But he's scoring less than I expected.    So far, the minority opinion that Rondo is a superstar has been proven false this season.   9.5 assists and 11 points on ghastly shooting while leading a bottom 5 team is nothing to celebrate or gloat about.   Rondo's a good player who needs great players to carry the load.

   Every time Rondo's been hurt or missing from the playoffs since 2009 or so we've seen exactly how far those "great players" could "carry the load".

Glad we are in agreement about something.  KG and Pierce carried us to the playoffs last year.  They are contributing to the playoffs again this year in Brooklyn despite being geriatrics.  Post-prime ROndo has yet to lead a team to the playoffs.

  If your claim is they "led" us to a .500 record and some of the worst offense in the history of the playoffs then yeah, I guess we are in agreement about how far those two were carrying us.

[LarBrd33]

Here's the sequel thread to "Rajon Rondo's February":  http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=69934.msg1631531#msg1631531

Based on his February, it was proclaimed that Rondo's shooting was "much improved".

Here's his stats for March:

11.4 points, 11.1 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.3 steals - 36.8 minutes - 37%/24%/56% shooting

Pretty turrible shootin.  Thoughts?

To me, it seems he's as bad a shooter as ever, but now he's a terrible finisher as well.  This is partially because he's coming off an injury... partially, because he's no longer sharing the court with 3 hall of fame champs carrying the offensive load and drawing defensive attention.   Collectively for the season, his 3P and FT shooting is as bad as ever.  His overall FG% is a career low.

  We'll see how much of it's due to his coming back from injury next year. Hopefully your claim that he's missing shots because he's not playing with the big three will prove to be as accurate as all of your posts claiming that his being on the court with those guys was the main reason he got all those assists.

It'll only be a matter of time before he calls Bass a future hall of famer

"I mean...Bass is practically a hall of famer if you're just talking mid-range shots. Case still stands - Rondo can only get assists with hall of famers and is overrated."

I just Lol'd

There are some that Rondo will never please, people will always take shots at him and gripe about how he's overrated because their minds are made up already.

With that said, there's no question he's shooting badly but he's still managing to impact the game in other ways. 11.1 assists (also he averaged 9.9 assists for February - remember when people said he'd never be able to crack double digit assists without the Big Three?) and 5.6 rebounds (not too shabby for an over the hill, 6'1" PG with a bum knee).

All in all, Rondo's up and down play has been about what I expected so far. Would I like his percentages to be higher? Sure, but this season has been more about process than results for the entire team and I'm a bit more interested in the types of shots he's taking. He's clearly more comfortable being a facilitator than a scorer, but is he willing to be more aggressive in finding his own offense?

All these are points great points and I've lol'd as well. "Rondo can't play without the big three" yet he still finds a way to average 11 assists per game? Give me a break people.

Yeah it's hilarious... he's leading us to the 4th worst record in the entire NBA.  High comedy.  At some point he's going to have to adjust.  He's averaging 9.5 assists... which is 1 more than I expected.  But he's scoring less than I expected.    So far, the minority opinion that Rondo is a superstar has been proven false this season.   9.5 assists and 11 points on ghastly shooting while leading a bottom 5 team is nothing to celebrate or gloat about.   Rondo's a good player who needs great players to carry the load.

   Every time Rondo's been hurt or missing from the playoffs since 2009 or so we've seen exactly how far those "great players" could "carry the load".

Glad we are in agreement about something.  KG and Pierce carried us to the playoffs last year.  They are contributing to the playoffs again this year in Brooklyn despite being geriatrics.  Post-prime ROndo has yet to lead a team to the playoffs.

  If your claim is they "led" us to a .500 record and some of the worst offense in the history of the playoffs then yeah, I guess we are in agreement about how far those two were carrying us.

Yes.  Complete agreement... those two elderlies took us further than Rondo

[Roy H.]

^ This is probably a good time to remind people of this rule, which is rarely enforced:

Do not use more than four layers of "nested" quotations in a post.

With the new site format, we're going to ask that people pay much more close attention to this one.

[BballTim]

Yes.  Complete agreement... those two elderlies took us further than Rondo

  Ok, you win. When healthy, the two of them combined were able to contribute more to to a team than Rondo coming back from injury. Looking at the standings from year to year, it looks like those two combined to make us 3-4 points a game better than we are with a less than healthy Rondo.

Edited.  See above.

[LarBrd33]

We all knew Rondo was going to keep getting his assist numbers -- the bigger difference is that Rondo's getting his numbers on a (mostly) losing team.

  You must be fairly new here if you haven't seen loads of posts attributing Rondo's assists to the great shooters he was around or claiming things like "you could stick most point guards on a team full of HOFers and they'd get as many assists as Rondo" or the like. You'll hear plenty of claims that people expected Rondo to get as many or almost as many assists without the big three from people who have been saying the opposite for years, in fact we're already seeing posts like that.

Eh... You keep suggesting I claimed his assists were due to Ray Allen.  Find me a quote.  Pretty sure you misinterpreted what I said.

  I'm fairly certain that not only did you talk about how easy it was for Rondo to get assists playing with Ray, but at some point you even admitted that you were surprised that he didn't skip a beat with Bradley starting over Ray. I'm not going to wade through a year and a half of your "Rondo sucks" posts to find them though. There are no doubt thousands of them.

When have I said Rondo sucks?  Stop making stuff up, Tim.  I said he's a terrible shooter.   He is.   It's not even worth debating.  Right now he's shooting worse than Ricky RUbio.  I said he's not as good as Chris Paul.  That's true too.  He doesn't suck, though.  He's a solid player.  I'm glad we have him.  We'll need a lot more if we are ever going to be relevant again, though. 

[nickagneta]

We all knew Rondo was going to keep getting his assist numbers -- the bigger difference is that Rondo's getting his numbers on a (mostly) losing team.

  You must be fairly new here if you haven't seen loads of posts attributing Rondo's assists to the great shooters he was around or claiming things like "you could stick most point guards on a team full of HOFers and they'd get as many assists as Rondo" or the like. You'll hear plenty of claims that people expected Rondo to get as many or almost as many assists without the big three from people who have been saying the opposite for years, in fact we're already seeing posts like that.

Eh... You keep suggesting I claimed his assists were due to Ray Allen.  Find me a quote.  Pretty sure you misinterpreted what I said.

  I'm fairly certain that not only did you talk about how easy it was for Rondo to get assists playing with Ray, but at some point you even admitted that you were surprised that he didn't skip a beat with Bradley starting over Ray. I'm not going to wade through a year and a half of your "Rondo sucks" posts to find them though. There are no doubt thousands of them.

When have I said Rondo sucks?  Stop making stuff up, Tim.  I said he's a terrible shooter.   He is.   It's not even worth debating.  Right now he's shooting worse than Ricky RUbio.  I said he's not as good as Chris Paul.  That's true too.  He doesn't suck, though.  He's a solid player.  I'm glad we have him.  We'll need a lot more if we are ever going to be relevant again, though.

Well to be completely fair LB you have stated

Rondo was not a superstar
Rondo was not a top ten PG
Rondo was a horrible shooter
Rondo could not lead a team post Big Three
Rondo had a large number of assists because he played with 3 Hall of Famers(insinuating his total would fall greatly if not playing with them.)
Rondo was injury prone
Rondo was past his prime
Rondo was a locker room problem

And you have had him traded from this team since 2009 for various reasons including all of the above.

I don't think its giant stretch to go from the sum of number of negative things you have espoused on Rondo to thinking you said Rondo sucks. I think that is pretty fair.

[Tr1boy]

We all knew Rondo was going to keep getting his assist numbers -- the bigger difference is that Rondo's getting his numbers on a (mostly) losing team.

  You must be fairly new here if you haven't seen loads of posts attributing Rondo's assists to the great shooters he was around or claiming things like "you could stick most point guards on a team full of HOFers and they'd get as many assists as Rondo" or the like. You'll hear plenty of claims that people expected Rondo to get as many or almost as many assists without the big three from people who have been saying the opposite for years, in fact we're already seeing posts like that.

Eh... You keep suggesting I claimed his assists were due to Ray Allen.  Find me a quote.  Pretty sure you misinterpreted what I said.

  I'm fairly certain that not only did you talk about how easy it was for Rondo to get assists playing with Ray, but at some point you even admitted that you were surprised that he didn't skip a beat with Bradley starting over Ray. I'm not going to wade through a year and a half of your "Rondo sucks" posts to find them though. There are no doubt thousands of them.

When have I said Rondo sucks?  Stop making stuff up, Tim.  I said he's a terrible shooter.   He is.   It's not even worth debating.  Right now he's shooting worse than Ricky RUbio.  I said he's not as good as Chris Paul.  That's true too.  He doesn't suck, though.  He's a solid player.  I'm glad we have him.  We'll need a lot more if we are ever going to be relevant again, though.

Well to be completely fair LB you have stated

Rondo was not a superstar
Rondo was not a top ten PG
Rondo was a horrible shooter
Rondo could not lead a team post Big Three
Rondo had a large number of assists because he played with 3 Hall of Famers(insinuating his total would fall greatly if not playing with them.)
Rondo was injury prone
Rondo was past his prime
Rondo was a locker room problem

And you have had him traded from this team since 2009 for various reasons including all of the above.

I don't think its giant stretch to go from the sum of number of negative things you have espoused on Rondo to thinking you said Rondo sucks. I think that is pretty fair.

Bird is just stating the obvious. Rondo also since last season is one of the worse defenders in the league, can't shoot, can't finish around the rim effectively. He is great at yelling and bossing around everyone else though

Rondo = Super Role Player but thinks he is a near franchise calibre or legit all star.  You have to do alot more than select pass to get 10 plus assists and fight your own teammates for defensive rebounds to pad stats to be considered an elite player in this league.   

I have no problem with Rondo being a Super Role Player.  He was once great at it mainly because the blue collar effort was there.   The difference since the beginning of the last season is minus the blue collar effort and taking alot more shortcuts assisting with the team losing alot more games. 

[LarBrd33]

We all knew Rondo was going to keep getting his assist numbers -- the bigger difference is that Rondo's getting his numbers on a (mostly) losing team.

  You must be fairly new here if you haven't seen loads of posts attributing Rondo's assists to the great shooters he was around or claiming things like "you could stick most point guards on a team full of HOFers and they'd get as many assists as Rondo" or the like. You'll hear plenty of claims that people expected Rondo to get as many or almost as many assists without the big three from people who have been saying the opposite for years, in fact we're already seeing posts like that.

Eh... You keep suggesting I claimed his assists were due to Ray Allen.  Find me a quote.  Pretty sure you misinterpreted what I said.

  I'm fairly certain that not only did you talk about how easy it was for Rondo to get assists playing with Ray, but at some point you even admitted that you were surprised that he didn't skip a beat with Bradley starting over Ray. I'm not going to wade through a year and a half of your "Rondo sucks" posts to find them though. There are no doubt thousands of them.

When have I said Rondo sucks?  Stop making stuff up, Tim.  I said he's a terrible shooter.   He is.   It's not even worth debating.  Right now he's shooting worse than Ricky RUbio.  I said he's not as good as Chris Paul.  That's true too.  He doesn't suck, though.  He's a solid player.  I'm glad we have him.  We'll need a lot more if we are ever going to be relevant again, though.

Well to be completely fair LB you have stated

Rondo was not a superstar
Rondo was not a top ten PG
Rondo was a horrible shooter
Rondo could not lead a team post Big Three
Rondo had a large number of assists because he played with 3 Hall of Famers(insinuating his total would fall greatly if not playing with them.)
Rondo was injury prone
Rondo was past his prime
Rondo was a locker room problem

And you have had him traded from this team since 2009 for various reasons including all of the above.

I don't think its giant stretch to go from the sum of number of negative things you have espoused on Rondo to thinking you said Rondo sucks. I think that is pretty fair.

So far all of those bullet points are accurate.  We will see if he magically changes trajectory next season.

Edit:  except for locker room problem.  I may have pointed out what we have heard about him from reports... He didn't get along with ray.  I wouldn't call that a "locker room problem" exactly.

[Celtics18]

Rondo was not a superstar
Rondo was not a top ten PG
Rondo was a horrible shooter
Rondo could not lead a team post Big Three
Rondo had a large number of assists because he played with 3 Hall of Famers(insinuating his total would fall greatly if not playing with them.)
Rondo was injury prone
Rondo was past his prime
Rondo was a locker room problem

And you have had him traded from this team since 2009 for various reasons including all of the above.

I don't think its giant stretch to go from the sum of number of negative things you have espoused on Rondo to thinking you said Rondo sucks. I think that is pretty fair.

"So far all of those bullet points are accurate.  We will see if he magically changes trajectory next season.

Edit:  except for locker room problem.  I may have pointed out what we have heard about him from reports... He didn't get along with ray.  I wouldn't call that a "locker room problem" exactly.
[/quote]"  LarBrd33

Rondo was never a "superstar."  I agree with this.  However, the only two current players (maybe I'll include Chris Paul, as well) under 30 who I see fitting this category right now are Lebron James and Kevin Durant.

There are a bunch of "stars" in the NBA, though:

Kevin Love, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Lamarcus Aldridge, Steph Curry, James Harden, Joakim Noah are some.

Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook and Derrick Rose will belong back on that list if they can return to pre-injury form.

It's not a given that Rondo will be able to return to his "star" form, but it's not without precedence.  Rondo is a tough costumer and I am relying on him getting back to being the player he was before his injury by next season. 

I think it's reasonable to hope that he's got four or five years of prime basketball left. 

[LarBrd33]

I mean... best case scenario we draft a superstar and then use our spare parts to trade for another.   Rondo does a lot of positive things out there.  I think you can contend for a title if he's your 3rd best player.  I figure he'll be here for at least another season.  We'll see what happens.

[Celtics18]

I mean... best case scenario we draft a superstar and then use our spare parts to trade for another.   Rondo does a lot of positive things out there.  I think you can contend for a title if he's your 3rd best player.  I figure he'll be here for at least another season.  We'll see what happens.

Which players do you consider "superstars"?  How many do you think there are currently in the league, and how many in this year's draft?

Just curious.

[j804]

I love Rondo but boy can he be frustrating at times I'm with those that say he'll NEVER be a good shooter. I hope we lock him up but not at a max contract.

[Celtics18]

I love Rondo but boy can he be frustrating at times I'm with those that say he'll NEVER be a good shooter. I hope we lock him up but not at a max contract.

I'm against those who say he'll NEVER be a good shooter.

[D.o.s.]

Can someone explain to me what "blue collar effort" is?

Is there a metric we use for that?