can Rondo play in the Spurs system?

[Eja117]

The Heat and especially the Spurs play a total team basketball game.  Everyone is involved and nobody has or pounds the ball for more than 5 sec.

Rondo on the other hand has the ball usually in his possession for 10 sec or more, before letting the ball go (sometimes asking for it back). So if rondo played for the spurs could he adapt and succeed in their system?

Kinda like asking if MJ could have played in the Spurs system. I think he'd be ok, and they'd take the defensive upgrade.

[BballTim]

Yes, he could play in it.  In fact, he played in a similar system in the early "big three" era, where he was the primary ball-handler, but everyone touched the ball a lot more.  Rondo's role increased over time, to the point where he became ball-dominant.  However, it wasn't always that way.

I don't think he'd be as effective as Parker with the Spurs, though.  Rondo is inferior at scoring, penetration, shooting, and FT shooting.  Rondo is probably a better / more creative passer, but I think Parker is probably better (if for no reason other than familiarity) in terms of initiating the Spurs' offense / making quick passes that don't always immediately lead to open shots, but that do facilitate the offense for others.

  Rondo and Parker are fairly equal in terms of penetration and Rondo's advantage in passing is at least as great as Parker's in scoring. Parker is more familiar with the Spurs players and offense though.

[LarBrd33]

Can Rondo play in the Spurs system?

No.  In the other thread about this, I pointed out that since Rondo can't shoot... he wouldn't be a factor in the Spurs offense.

Tim came out with a solid counter-point which was that Rondo needs excellent shooters to succeed... so if you put him on a team like San Antonio where he'd be surrounded by excellent shooters, he'd succeed.

I agree with Tim on this.  Yes, Rondo could succeed on the Spurs if surrounded by good shooters.... but the answer to the above question is still "no". 

The Spurs would need to adapt to a system where Rondo controls the ball the majority of the time, ball movement is limited and Rondo acts as the distributor.  Thus, it would essentially cease to be the "Spurs system" as we currently think of it.    If they continued to run the Spurs system of ball movement, Rondo would struggle.  He can't shoot.  He wouldn't be a factor if the ball was in someone else's hands.  He wouldn't help spread the floor.  He wouldn't be making open jumpers.   

What this thread is stumbling on is potentially a key issue heading forward.  A lot of people seem to believe that Brad Stevens "prefers" an offensive system more in line with the Spurs.  Lots of shooters, lots of ball movement.  We don't have any evidence that Rondo can succeed in a system like that.  In fact, when Rondo played this season... it did NOT seem to be within the Brad Stevens "Free flowing/ball movement" offense.  Rondo (likely still recovering from injury) didn't try adapting this season... instead, he just ran the same Rondo-centric offense... and it resulted in a 6-24 record... a worst win percentage than we had with Jordan Crawford running point.  That's not to say that it's impossible for Rondo to succeed on the Spurs or with Brad Stevens... it's just that Rondo's lack of shooting ability means that the team/system/coach will need to adapt... not Rondo.  And who knows... maybe if the Spurs adapted their system to be Rondo-centric, they'd be even better.  Rondo is excellent at what he's able to do... perhaps it would make them even more dangerous.  Fun to think about. 

Extra Thoughts:  What would happen if you put Tony Parker on the Celtics and had him run a Rondo-system?   Do you think he could change his game enough to score 12 points and 11 assists per night?  I do.  We've seen systems change players in the past.  Steve Nash is a great example.  On Dallas, they shared the ball more and he averaged 7-9 assists.  Then he goes to the Suns where they up the tempo and he controls the ball 90% of the time... he ups it to 11+ assists.   Last thought, it's not like Rondo would be a complete disaster within the Spurs system.  On our championship year, he averaged 10 points and 5 assists.   In the Spurs system, he'd see his assists plummet (parker is averaging 5 assists), but his lack of shooting ability means he wouldn't be helping the team on the level of Tony Parker (17.5 points on 49%/38%/72%)

[Tr1boy]

Yes, he could play in it.  In fact, he played in a similar system in the early "big three" era, where he was the primary ball-handler, but everyone touched the ball a lot more.  Rondo's role increased over time, to the point where he became ball-dominant.  However, it wasn't always that way.

I don't think he'd be as effective as Parker with the Spurs, though.  Rondo is inferior at scoring, penetration, shooting, and FT shooting.  Rondo is probably a better / more creative passer, but I think Parker is probably better (if for no reason other than familiarity) in terms of initiating the Spurs' offense / making quick passes that don't always immediately lead to open shots, but that do facilitate the offense for others.

+1.

[BballTim]

Can Rondo play in the Spurs system?

No.  In the other thread about this, I pointed out that since Rondo can't shoot... he wouldn't be a factor in the Spurs offense.

Tim came out with a solid counter-point which was that Rondo needs excellent shooters to succeed... so if you put him on a team like San Antonio where he'd be surrounded by excellent shooters, he'd succeed.

I agree with Tim on this.  Yes, Rondo could succeed on the Spurs if surrounded by good shooters.... but the answer to the above question is still "no". 

  I wasn't claiming Rondo needed scorers to succeed. I was pointing out that you frequently made that claim. Obviously that's not the case. I agree with you that he'd be very successful with the Spurs though. That's pretty much a given.

The Spurs would need to adapt to a system where Rondo controls the ball the majority of the time, ball movement is limited and Rondo acts as the distributor.  Thus, it would essentially cease to be the "Spurs system" as we currently think of it.    If they continued to run the Spurs system of ball movement, Rondo would struggle.  He can't shoot.  He wouldn't be a factor if the ball was in someone else's hands.  He wouldn't help spread the floor.  He wouldn't be making open jumpers.   

  This isn't really the case. First of all it's worth pointing out that Parker controls the ball almost as much as Rondo does. He also drives into the lane (in a half court setting) more often than Rondo, and Manu handles the ball a lot when Parker doesn't. The thought that there are 5 players equally handling the ball or that Parker spends much more time off the ball than Rondo does now isn't really accurate. Beyond that, Rondo's pretty good at making open jumpers,

What this thread is stumbling on is potentially a key issue heading forward.  A lot of people seem to believe that Brad Stevens "prefers" an offensive system more in line with the Spurs.  Lots of shooters, lots of ball movement.  We don't have any evidence that Rondo can succeed in a system like that.  In fact, when Rondo played this season... it did NOT seem to be within the Brad Stevens "Free flowing/ball movement" offense.  Rondo (likely still recovering from injury) didn't try adapting this season... instead, he just ran the same Rondo-centric offense... and it resulted in a 6-24 record... a worst win percentage than we had with Jordan Crawford running point.  That's not to say that it's impossible for Rondo to succeed on the Spurs or with Brad Stevens... it's just that Rondo's lack of shooting ability means that the team/system/coach will need to adapt... not Rondo.  And who knows... maybe if the Spurs adapted their system to be Rondo-centric, they'd be even better.  Rondo is excellent at what he's able to do... perhaps it would make them even more dangerous.  Fun to think about.

  Not sure if you saw any games this year, but we didn't have anything that really resembled a free flowing ball movement offense in the games Rondo missed. Not to mention that Crawford controlled the ball as much as Rondo did. There was no other system in place that he needed to adapt to. You should also consider that before Rondo came back Stevens used to talk about things that he wanted to implement but he couldn't until Rondo was playing, so there's no real evidence that Stevens wants to run an offense where Rondo doesn't have the ball a lot.

Extra Thoughts:  What would happen if you put Tony Parker on the Celtics and had him run a Rondo-system?   Do you think he could change his game enough to score 12 points and 11 assists per night?  I do.  We've seen systems change players in the past.  Steve Nash is a great example.  On Dallas, they shared the ball more and he averaged 7-9 assists.  Then he goes to the Suns where they up the tempo and he controls the ball 90% of the time... he ups it to 11+ assists.   Last thought, it's not like Rondo would be a complete disaster within the Spurs system.  On our championship year, he averaged 10 points and 5 assists.   In the Spurs system, he'd see his assists plummet (parker is averaging 5 assists), but his lack of shooting ability means he wouldn't be helping the team on the level of Tony Parker (17.5 points on 49%/38%/72%)

  Parker's not Nash. He's played on teams with different styles in SA, ranging from fast-paced transition based teams to grind-it-out half court teams and he's never averaged as many as 8 assists a game. He's just not a great distributor and doesn't excel in creating shots for others. If Parker was only scoring 12 ppg it would be harder for him to create for others than it already is because teams would play him for the pass and not the shot.

  You seem to think it's easy to average 11 assists a game. It's not, it's only been done by 13 players and it's only been done more than twice by 5 players ever. Could CP average 11 apg? Sure. Could Westbrook? Unlikely. He'd have to make (based on his tracking data) about 7 more passes that went for shots to get up to 11 apg. Players don't shoot every time he gets them the ball (even when they can) so you're talking about 9-10 more passes than he currently makes. You might end up with  another turnover in the mix.

  If he's passing that much more he's shooting less, so teams would be playing him for the pass, so that makes it harder to get assists. His teammates will hit fewer shots since he won't be getting as much attention from the defense, so that means it will take even more passes to get those assists. He'd probably end up scoring less than what Rondo does. Parker falls more into the "Westbrook" category as a pg than the CP/Nash/Rondo category.

  As for Rondo on the Spurs, you'd have to wonder how long Stockton's single season assist record would stay on the board. Rondo led the league in assists over the last 3 months (Feb-Apr) of the season on a team that was 29th or so in the league in fg%. Put him on the Spurs and he'd easily get more assists than he does now.

[LarBrd33]

Cool tim.  Give me an example of a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo does, averages less than 14 points... and doesn't average over 9 assists. 

[D.o.s.]

Cool tim.  Give me an example of a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo does, averages less than 14 points... and doesn't average over 9 assists.

http://bkref.com/tiny/rS2Jd

I used Usage rate for 'controls the ball as much'

And they had to have qualified for the Minutes Per Game leaderboard.

[LarBrd33]

Cool tim.  Give me an example of a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo does, averages less than 14 points... and doesn't average over 9 assists.

http://bkref.com/tiny/rS2Jd

I used Usage rate for 'controls the ball as much'

And they had to have qualified for the Minutes Per Game leaderboard.

What does usage have to do with ball-dominating?  It just means they were on the floor.  I'm talking about...find me a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo, scores as little as he does... I'm fairly certain they'd average as many assists.

This year, Rondo was 4th in the entire league in "Touches Per Game".  The 3 players above him:

Kemba Walker - 17.7 points, 6 assists
John Wall - 19.3 points, 8.8 assists
Chris Paul - 19 points, 10.7 assists

... They all make up for lack of assists by scoring

Parker was 29th ... He averages about 20 less touches per game than Rondo.

Rondo is also 2nd in the league in "Time of Possession"... almost tied with John Wall.  Parker is 25th...

[Tr1boy]

Cool tim.  Give me an example of a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo does, averages less than 14 points... and doesn't average over 9 assists.

http://bkref.com/tiny/rS2Jd

I used Usage rate for 'controls the ball as much'

And they had to have qualified for the Minutes Per Game leaderboard.

What does usage have to do with ball-dominating?  It just means they were on the floor.  I'm talking about...find me a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo, scores as little as he does... I'm fairly certain they'd average as many assists.

This year, Rondo was 4th in the entire league in "Touches Per Game".  The 3 players above him:

Kemba Walker - 17.7 points, 6 assists
John Wall - 19.3 points, 8.8 assists
Chris Paul - 19 points, 10.7 assists

... They all make up for lack of assists by scoring

Parker was 29th ... He averages about 20 less touches per game than Rondo.

Rondo is also 2nd in the league in "Time of Possession"... almost tied with John Wall.  Parker is 25th...

exactly.  Tim never lays out the full picture like you have

Rondo needs to increase his efficiency/scoring out there if he is going to hold onto the ball that much.  Or pass the ball up quicker and do other things to help the offense

[Tr1boy]

Extra Thoughts:  What would happen if you put Tony Parker on the Celtics

I would love to have Parker as a Celtic.  He would thrive under BS and work better with our current than Rondo has.

[BballTim]

Cool tim.  Give me an example of a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo does, averages less than 14 points... and doesn't average over 9 assists.

  Why don't you start me out with a list of players who control the ball as much as Rondo does, since you generally claim he's alone in the league in that category. I'm not sure what that would prove in any case. But you're not really understanding what's wrong with your argument. Let's flip it around and use it on Rondo, which I'm sure will get your goat.

  What if Rondo was in a "spurs system", and in your ridiculous scenario only got 5-6 assists per game. He'd clearly be making fewer of those passes that go for assists, so he'd end up shooting more. If he shot the ball instead of making those passes for assists and hit those shots at his typical career rate he'd be scoring 20ppg. So if he got the same paltry assist totals that Parker gets he'd probably be as good or better of a scorer than Parker. Based on your argument is an almost unavoidable conclusion.

[LarBrd33]

Cool tim.  Give me an example of a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo does, averages less than 14 points... and doesn't average over 9 assists.

http://bkref.com/tiny/rS2Jd

I used Usage rate for 'controls the ball as much'

And they had to have qualified for the Minutes Per Game leaderboard.

What does usage have to do with ball-dominating?  It just means they were on the floor.  I'm talking about...find me a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo, scores as little as he does... I'm fairly certain they'd average as many assists.

This year, Rondo was 4th in the entire league in "Touches Per Game".  The 3 players above him:

Kemba Walker - 17.7 points, 6 assists
John Wall - 19.3 points, 8.8 assists
Chris Paul - 19 points, 10.7 assists

... They all make up for lack of assists by scoring

Parker was 29th ... He averages about 20 less touches per game than Rondo.

Rondo is also 2nd in the league in "Time of Possession"... almost tied with John Wall.  Parker is 25th...

Again, this is about my theory that Tony Parker could average 11 assists if he controlled the ball as much as Rondo and only had to score 12 points per night. 

Spurs had 447.7 touches per game this season.  Parker had 75.5.

Celtics had 418.7 touches per game.  Rondo had 93.1 (4th in the entire league)

I suck at math.  Doesn't that mean Parker had 16.8% of his team's touches and Rondo had 22.2% of his teams touches?

Of course, this is interesting if my interpretation of "touches" is correct, because in a team that lacks ball movement, you'd expect Rondo's "touches" to be less, right?  Once he passes the ball, it's in an assist-generating situation and he's unlikely to see the ball back.  Yet, he still averages the 4th most touches in the entire league.    Let's look at time of possession...

...

Spurs players have the ball in their hands for 18.1 minutes per game.  Parker 6 minutes.

Celtics players have the ball in their hands for 18.5 minutes per game.  Rondo 7.7 minutes (2nd in the entire league).

Again, I suck at math... doesn't that mean that Parker has the ball in his hands 33.1% of the time... while Rondo has the ball in his hands 41.6% of the time?

...

Tony Parker this season per 36 minutes:  20.4 points, 7 assists

Rondo this season per 36 minutes:  12.6 points, 10.6 assists. 

Once again, I'm terrible at math.. but doesnt that mean that Parker is responsible for at least 34.4 points per game (his points plus his assists x 2)... while Rondo is responsible for 33.8 points? (his points plus his assists x 2)...

Seems to me that if Tony Parker played in an offensive system where he was controlling the ball a higher percentage of time (like Rondo) and asked to score less (like Rondo), we'd see an uptick in his assists.   

Alternatively, seems to me that if Rondo played in an offensive system where he was controlling the ball a lower percentage of time (like Parker) and asked to score more (like Parker), we'd see a drop in his assists... but his lack of scoring ability would prevent him from scoring as much as Tony Parker.  WE basically saw this in 2008 when Rondo was a role player in a Pierce/KG/Ray centric offense.  10 points and 5 assists.    Whereas Parker right now is averaging 17 points and 5 assists.

[Tr1boy]

are we comparing Rondo to Parker??

Parker is better

[Jailan34]

There's no shame in Parker being a better player, there is also no shame in RR not being a fit for the Spurs system, its pretty unique in todays NBA.

[BballTim]

Cool tim.  Give me an example of a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo does, averages less than 14 points... and doesn't average over 9 assists.

http://bkref.com/tiny/rS2Jd

I used Usage rate for 'controls the ball as much'

And they had to have qualified for the Minutes Per Game leaderboard.

What does usage have to do with ball-dominating?  It just means they were on the floor.  I'm talking about...find me a player who controls the ball as much as Rondo, scores as little as he does... I'm fairly certain they'd average as many assists.

This year, Rondo was 4th in the entire league in "Touches Per Game".  The 3 players above him:

Kemba Walker - 17.7 points, 6 assists
John Wall - 19.3 points, 8.8 assists
Chris Paul - 19 points, 10.7 assists

... They all make up for lack of assists by scoring

Parker was 29th ... He averages about 20 less touches per game than Rondo.

Rondo is also 2nd in the league in "Time of Possession"... almost tied with John Wall.  Parker is 25th...

exactly.  Tim never lays out the full picture like you have

Rondo needs to increase his efficiency/scoring out there if he is going to hold onto the ball that much.  Or pass the ball up quicker and do other things to help the offense

  First of all I don't think you understand what "lays out the full picture" means. All LarBrd's doing is saying that  other players that control the ball average a lot less assists but "he's fairly certain that they'd average as many assists as Rondo if they scored less", while offering his near certainty as his only argument towards his claim.