1. Marcus Smart is a better defender than Rondo. Rondo once was an excellent thief but was only an avg man to man defender and can get overwhelmed by bigger guards. With Smart you will rarely have to worry about this problem. Smart is an excellent thief also
Hmm...I think you either only started watching Rondo in the last 2-3 seasons, or you just have a bad memory.
Rondo basically was the Celtic's Avery Bradley before Avery Bradley became Avery Bradley.
Rondo was an elite defensive PG (possibly the best in the league) and used to apply some seriously suffocating defensive pressure on the perimeter earlier in his career.
He also often took on defending bigger players at other positions, and was surprisingly effective. He even did a suprisingly decent job of defending Lebron in the post on one or two possessions (Lebron eventually adjusted and of course had his way afterwards).
When AB came along (and the big 3 got older) that's when Rondo's offensive responsibility increased dramatically, and that seemed to be when his defensive energy seemed to taper off a lot. Before that though he was a beast on the defensive end.
To be honest, I don't entirely blame him for the drop off either. For the last few years Rondo has been playing huge minutes (rarely ever less then 35, and often 40+ in the playoffs) and it's incredibly difficult to run an offense as the primary ball handler and playmaker AND play constant pressure defense when you are playing those kind of minutes.
Yes, Bradley did used to do it - but that was back in the days when he was playing no more than 25-28 minutes a game and had almost zero offensive responsiblity...hence he could afford to expend all of his energy defenisvely.
In fact so good was Rondo's defense in the old days, that I still remember in Bradley's first year, when he wasn't getting playing time yet, Rondo actually made a comment along the lines of "Avery Bradley is a better man-on defender than I am", and at the time people on CelticsBlog went nuts because Rondo was such an elite defensive player at that time that a comment like this had people stunned.
Still, right now Marcus Smart is the better defender of the two...and I'm going to stick to that conclusion until Rondo brings back his old bulldog defense on a consistent basis.
2. Rondo is a better offensive player, better passer. But Smart is no slouch. He has better passing skills than most give him credit for and i have already seen a better jump shot from him than i have ever seen from Rondo. Smart has 3 pt range and is gaining rapid confidence in his shot
I will say that Rondo is a better offensive player in some regards.
He is obviously far superior in terms of basketball IQ, court vision and passing. He may well be the best player in the entire league in those three categories, with Chris Paul and Steve Nash being the only other players that could really challenge him.
He's also a better ball handler - again Rondo is one of the best ball handlers in the league, thanks largely to his giant hands.
Rondo may also be a better midrange jump shooter - he has actually shot incredibly well (percentage wise) from midrange the past couple of seasons, borderline elite level. Smart I think will one day be a good shooter from midrange, but I don't think he's there yet.
I think that might be where Rondo's offensive advantages end.
Smart is (from what I've seen so far) a three-point shooter and (unquestionably) a better free throw shooter. I'll say that Smart is also a better Post-up player.
When it comes to driving / attacking the basket it's a tough call - I'm going to say they are probably about equal. Smart is obviously much taller and stronger, so I anticipate that he will much better at finishing through contact. Smart is also a more willing driver, in that he is absolutely fearless when attacking the basket and attacks the basket with a scorers mentality.
Rondo on the other hand is more skilled as a finesse finisher - he's explosive quickness and ball handling skills allow him to blow past his man on occasions where Smart may not be able to, and he's very good at shifting his body around in mid air and making tricky shots. On the other hand Rondo is more hessitant to attack the basket, and when he does he does attack the basket he tends to drive with the intention to pass. This means that the defense sometimes doesn't respect his drive and doesn't commit to him as much as he'd probably like.
Overall it's hard to conclude which player is better offensively overall...it just depends what you need.
I think that Smart is more versatile offensively because he is competent at everything. If you defend him too close he can (and will) put the ball on the floor and attack the basket. If you sag off him then he is (IMO) much more of a scoring threat from three then Rondo is, and is quite capable of punishing you - even if that's not his forte. He can also post up against smaller guards. Yet he is also has solid IQ, court vision, passing skills, and ball handling - so he can play the 'pure PG role' if he needs to. However Smart isn't really a 'specialist' in any one offenisve area. He's just a jack of all trades guy who is solid everywhere, with the potential to get a lot better.
Rondo is more of a specialist offensively. The things that he's good at, he's exception-to-elite at. The things he's not good at, he's very not good at. When he's on, Rondo can probably dominate a game in ways that Smart probably couldn't even dream of at this point in his career, because when Rondo's shot is falling this combined with his elite passing and IQ make him a matchup nightmare. On the other hand when the other team finds a way to turn Rondo in to a jump shooter, or plays him very physically at the basket, he can dissapear.
At this stage I'll give the nod to Rondo, but it's probably not as far off as people think.
3. Smart is younger, more durable. With him being younger, Stevens can mold him into the type of PG he wants out on the floor. Rondo will not listen to Stevens half the time. Rondo now having to be cautious of how he plays won't go full out like Smart can in addition
I don't think mentality is that big a thing here. I don't think Stevens would WANT to mould Rondo and change his basketball mentality, because Rondo's basketball mentality is arguably his greatest strength.
That stubbornness exasts as a direct result of his incredibly high basketball IQ. He legitimately understands the game better than 90% of guys in the NBA (both players and coaches) and he knows this. He has the confidence to stand up for himself if the coach makes, what he concludes to be, a questionable request.
Rondo has been the starting PG on an a championship team, and he achieved this in only his second NBA season. IIRC he has already played in three NBA Finals series as well as at least another 2 ECF series. Rondo ultimately has about 10x the NBA and playoff experience that his coach has, and probably has similar levels of basketball IQ as well.
Coach Stevens is (I think) a very good fit with Rondo because first of all, he has a high enough IQ to earn Rondo's respect. Secondly he seems like he is open minded enough that he probably doesn't mind Rondo taking lead from time to time, and is probably open to listen to suggestions from Rondo. He seems to have a very laid back demeanor, and I think that's necessary with RR. If he had a coach who was incredibly stubborn and who had a questionable IQ (e.g. Mike D'Antoni) then I think it would be a ticking time bomb - a disaster waiting to happen.
Injury is a legit point, but they can happen to anybody. Smart plays a very 'wreckless' style of game in that he drives fearlessly and practically begs for contact. Historically players like that tend to have high risk of injuries (Derek Rose, Gerald Wallace, Tmac, Kobe, etc). Rondo may be more restrained when it comes to attacking, but that mentality might actually benefit his long term health.
4. I know it's only 2 pre season games. But i have seen enough to know what i like. I like how Smart does not pound the ball, that he can switch to having a "sg" mentality and let other guys who have very good passing skills also be facilitators. Just confuse the opposing defense , instead of having one guy hold/dribble the ball.
At this stage I have to say that I believe our best solution is to have Rondo starting at the PG spot, with Marcus Smart playing significant minutes as a backup PG/SG.
When I say significant minutes, I mean 25-30 a game. This way it doesn't really matter if he's starting, because he's getting starters minutes anyway. I'd like to see Bradley, Rondo and Smart sharing pretty much all of the guard minutes, with all three on around 32 per game. Maybe even go 30/28/28 and then split the remaining 10 minutes between Pressey and Thornton - I think they both derserve some playing time and are guys who can come off the bench cold and make an immediate impact.
By the end of the seaon Smart should have had the playing time to really get comfortable in the league, and he would have had Rondo there as a mentor the entire time. Then it gives us more flexibility with what we do with Rondo...if he declines to sign and goes elsewhere, we will know Smart is ready to step up. Throwing him right in the deep end without Rondo might put too much pressure on him and may hurt his development.
Topic: I already like Marcus Smart better than Rondo as our starting PG (Read 48239 times)