Heinsohn: Sit Rondo if bad habits continue

[SHAQATTACK]

Maybe the talent level around Rondo is not up to his skill level 

He know we need more firepower.

[D.o.s.]

If we get exum , he will be tommys new favorite player.

Draft exum and trade rondo to sac for a top 10 pick works for me

McLemore and Sacto's pick looks like an awesome return. Rondo's ball dominant game isn't well suited for Stevens' motion offense because he can't shoot. We are now 6-23 since Rondo returned. We were 13-24 with Crawford.

On the flip side Stevens's (singular possessive) motion offense definitely isn't well suited to the NBA.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

yup

[Rondo9]

If we get exum , he will be tommys new favorite player.

Draft exum and trade rondo to sac for a top 10 pick works for me

McLemore and Sacto's pick looks like an awesome return. Rondo's ball dominant game isn't well suited for Stevens' motion offense because he can't shoot. We are now 6-23 since Rondo returned. We were 13-24 with Crawford.

Rondo spent the first few months recovering, there were other factors that led to the Celtics downfall other than simply Rondo.

[BballTim]

Tommy said this yesterday during the post-game show while talking to Kyle Draper. Tommy said that Stevens has been preaching to push the ball up all year. Draper asked him what does he do if a player, in this case Rondo, doesn't listen. He responded "you sit him". To which Draper said, "but that's your captain, and Heinsohn responded "doesn't matter".

Heinsohn elaborated by stating that Rondo developed a lot of bad habits in playing for Doc because he grew to accustomed to walking the ball up the court. However, he spoke about how team was different and they ran plays in the halfcourt to perfection. This team can't execute like those veteran teams, so Rondo needs to get into sets faster to get shots in transition and have more time on the clock to run plays. His pounding of the ball was also criticized as another bad habit.

  I don't think it would hurt for Rondo to get the ball up the court a little faster but it probably wouldn't help much either. He advances the ball up court when there's a decent ballhandler ahead of him (Green or Bayless for instance) and hurries the ball up when there's a transition opportunity. The complaints that he doesn't hurry when the defense is back and there's no transition opportunity is just nonsense. Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

[BballTim]

This is more of a team problem then Rondo.

No way man. The guy has the ball in his hands 80 percent of the time. 

Tommy is right. Take off your rondo jersey , take a shower and read again

  Put your Rondo jersey on and re-read:

  "This team has to go and find opportunities without plays. They've got to be aggressive without plays because they don't execute that well yet"

  It's not that hard to understand why he's calling it a team problem.

[PhoSita]

It's a problem with the talent and experience on the team, yes.  But it's also a Rondo problem to the extent that Rondo is failing to adapt his own playstyle to the guys that are around him.

[Vox_Populi]

I don't know what kind of offense could make this team look good. One thing is for certain, it isn't the one currently employed by Stevens and Rondo isn't doing it many favors. I do feel like he's helped more than hurt though, obviously.

[PhoSita]

I don't know what kind of offense could make this team look good. One thing is for certain, it isn't the one currently employed by Stevens and Rondo isn't doing it many favors. I do feel like he's helped more than hurt though, obviously.

This team lacks talented individual scorers and it's not built to succeed offensively as a group / system, either (lack of three point shooters and inside finishers).

So yeah, it's unlikely that this team could look good offensively in any case.  I imagine most of Stevens' focus this year has been on trying to keep this group above water defensively.  They've been mostly drowning on that end of things for the past couple of months, but overall this season they've been much more competent defensively than I would have expected.

[Eddie20]

Tommy said this yesterday during the post-game show while talking to Kyle Draper. Tommy said that Stevens has been preaching to push the ball up all year. Draper asked him what does he do if a player, in this case Rondo, doesn't listen. He responded "you sit him". To which Draper said, "but that's your captain, and Heinsohn responded "doesn't matter".

Heinsohn elaborated by stating that Rondo developed a lot of bad habits in playing for Doc because he grew to accustomed to walking the ball up the court. However, he spoke about how team was different and they ran plays in the halfcourt to perfection. This team can't execute like those veteran teams, so Rondo needs to get into sets faster to get shots in transition and have more time on the clock to run plays. His pounding of the ball was also criticized as another bad habit.

  I don't think it would hurt for Rondo to get the ball up the court a little faster but it probably wouldn't help much either. He advances the ball up court when there's a decent ballhandler ahead of him (Green or Bayless for instance) and hurries the ball up when there's a transition opportunity. The complaints that he doesn't hurry when the defense is back and there's no transition opportunity is just nonsense. Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

Another criticism of mine is that he way too often crashes the defensive glass looking for rebounds. Now there is a time and place when that is warranted, but I've seen him do it on plenty of occasions where a teammate has the rebound pretty much in hand. So I'd much rather see Rondo start leaking out looking for the outlet pass to start our fast break rather than receiving the ball by the other teams basket. Again, he doesn't need to leak out all the time, but I honestly can't recall the last time I've seen him do it and receive an outlet pass from a teammate.

[Eddie20]

If we get exum , he will be tommys new favorite player.

Draft exum and trade rondo to sac for a top 10 pick works for me

McLemore and Sacto's pick looks like an awesome return. Rondo's ball dominant game isn't well suited for Stevens' motion offense because he can't shoot. We are now 6-23 since Rondo returned. We were 13-24 with Crawford.

On the flip side Stevens's (singular possessive) motion offense definitely isn't well suited to the NBA.

What do you think the triangle is?

[BballTim]

Tommy said this yesterday during the post-game show while talking to Kyle Draper. Tommy said that Stevens has been preaching to push the ball up all year. Draper asked him what does he do if a player, in this case Rondo, doesn't listen. He responded "you sit him". To which Draper said, "but that's your captain, and Heinsohn responded "doesn't matter".

Heinsohn elaborated by stating that Rondo developed a lot of bad habits in playing for Doc because he grew to accustomed to walking the ball up the court. However, he spoke about how team was different and they ran plays in the halfcourt to perfection. This team can't execute like those veteran teams, so Rondo needs to get into sets faster to get shots in transition and have more time on the clock to run plays. His pounding of the ball was also criticized as another bad habit.

  I don't think it would hurt for Rondo to get the ball up the court a little faster but it probably wouldn't help much either. He advances the ball up court when there's a decent ballhandler ahead of him (Green or Bayless for instance) and hurries the ball up when there's a transition opportunity. The complaints that he doesn't hurry when the defense is back and there's no transition opportunity is just nonsense. Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

Another criticism of mine is that he way too often crashes the defensive glass looking for rebounds. Now there is a time and place when that is warranted, but I've seen him do it on plenty of occasions where a teammate has the rebound pretty much in hand. So I'd much rather see Rondo start leaking out looking for the outlet pass to start our fast break rather than receiving the ball by the other teams basket. Again, he doesn't need to leak out all the time, but I honestly can't recall the last time I've seen him do it and receive an outlet pass from a teammate.

  I see it happen every game. How often do you watch games, and how many games would you guess it's been since it happened?

[Eddie20]

Tommy said this yesterday during the post-game show while talking to Kyle Draper. Tommy said that Stevens has been preaching to push the ball up all year. Draper asked him what does he do if a player, in this case Rondo, doesn't listen. He responded "you sit him". To which Draper said, "but that's your captain, and Heinsohn responded "doesn't matter".

Heinsohn elaborated by stating that Rondo developed a lot of bad habits in playing for Doc because he grew to accustomed to walking the ball up the court. However, he spoke about how team was different and they ran plays in the halfcourt to perfection. This team can't execute like those veteran teams, so Rondo needs to get into sets faster to get shots in transition and have more time on the clock to run plays. His pounding of the ball was also criticized as another bad habit.

  I don't think it would hurt for Rondo to get the ball up the court a little faster but it probably wouldn't help much either. He advances the ball up court when there's a decent ballhandler ahead of him (Green or Bayless for instance) and hurries the ball up when there's a transition opportunity. The complaints that he doesn't hurry when the defense is back and there's no transition opportunity is just nonsense. Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

Another criticism of mine is that he way too often crashes the defensive glass looking for rebounds. Now there is a time and place when that is warranted, but I've seen him do it on plenty of occasions where a teammate has the rebound pretty much in hand. So I'd much rather see Rondo start leaking out looking for the outlet pass to start our fast break rather than receiving the ball by the other teams basket. Again, he doesn't need to leak out all the time, but I honestly can't recall the last time I've seen him do it and receive an outlet pass from a teammate.

  I see it happen every game. How often do you watch games, and how many games would you guess it's been since it happened?

Then we may have a different idea of what exactly an outlet pass is. So to humor you when is the last time you've seen Rondo receive an outlet pass near mid-court?

[Rondo9]

Tommy said this yesterday during the post-game show while talking to Kyle Draper. Tommy said that Stevens has been preaching to push the ball up all year. Draper asked him what does he do if a player, in this case Rondo, doesn't listen. He responded "you sit him". To which Draper said, "but that's your captain, and Heinsohn responded "doesn't matter".

Heinsohn elaborated by stating that Rondo developed a lot of bad habits in playing for Doc because he grew to accustomed to walking the ball up the court. However, he spoke about how team was different and they ran plays in the halfcourt to perfection. This team can't execute like those veteran teams, so Rondo needs to get into sets faster to get shots in transition and have more time on the clock to run plays. His pounding of the ball was also criticized as another bad habit.

  I don't think it would hurt for Rondo to get the ball up the court a little faster but it probably wouldn't help much either. He advances the ball up court when there's a decent ballhandler ahead of him (Green or Bayless for instance) and hurries the ball up when there's a transition opportunity. The complaints that he doesn't hurry when the defense is back and there's no transition opportunity is just nonsense. Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

Another criticism of mine is that he way too often crashes the defensive glass looking for rebounds. Now there is a time and place when that is warranted, but I've seen him do it on plenty of occasions where a teammate has the rebound pretty much in hand. So I'd much rather see Rondo start leaking out looking for the outlet pass to start our fast break rather than receiving the ball by the other teams basket. Again, he doesn't need to leak out all the time, but I honestly can't recall the last time I've seen him do it and receive an outlet pass from a teammate.

So a point guard grabbing rebounds to start the fast break or to start a play in case the defense runs back is all of a sudden a bad thing?

[PhoSita]

Beyond that though, the fact that people are quick to jump on Rondo for running plays because the other players don't execute well is both ridiculous and unsurprising. How many people are talking about who the players that can't execute plays are or criticizing them in the thread? Not many if any. How many are using Rondo's trying to execute an offense as another reason to trade him? Hilarious.

Well, I don't think you can have it both ways.  If Rondo is the best player on the team, and he is truly a star, then the burden is on him to lead the team and do the right things to help the team succeed.  Arguably, with the talent and experience being what it is on this team, that means that we should expect Rondo to adjust. 

Rondo's preference clearly is to dominate the ball, and to really slow down the pace and run plays at the end of tight games.  That style made sense a few years ago.  It doesn't play to the strengths of the current team -- insofar as this team has strengths -- at all.


I guess what I'm saying is that you can't tout Rondo's passing ability and general prowess as a floor general on the one hand (i.e. he makes the players around him better), and then when the team is failing to score points late in games despite having such a good passer say, "Well, you can't blame Rondo for having bad teammates."