I already like Marcus Smart better than Rondo as our starting PG

[BballTim]

"Marcus Smart is a better defender than Rondo"
We have yet to determine this. not saying its not true, but rondo is a 2-time all defensive 1st team and 2 time all defensive 2nd team player. not too many players can claim that.

"Smart is younger, more durable."
We dont know the durability thing yet but maybe.

Did Rondo make 2 time all defensive team bc of his steal and rebound #s or was it bc he was an excellent man to man/multi position capable defender??

From what i can remember, Rondo cheated enough times to get those steals.  And if he got burnt luckily he was supported by a tremendous team that really took defense seriously.   Alot of the rebounds he got, KG could of just stood there in the defensive end and it would of fell onto his laps. Yes Rondo did get some timely rebounds.  Yes he got some very important steals. But for me, i rather have a guy that is an excellent man to man defender 1st.  AB for all that he has done, only has a 2nd all defensive team under his belt.  Tony Allen didn't even make the team last season. Nobody really knows what standards are used to make this team.

For me Rondo's true defensive capability or willingness to play hard defense came in the 2012-2013 season , when KG/PP lost a step. Rondo again was just cheating, not playing proper man to man D.  He got burnt this time bc there weren't guys that could bail him out.   Guys like Bruce Bowen, AB, Tony Allen and now Marcus Smart are considered true perimeter defensive mvp's imo.

Oh my god, you nailed it.  These Rondo apologists act like he can do no wrong.  And if you say one negative thing about him you're "a hater."  Red Auerbach, Pete Carill, Phil Jackson, and Greg Popovich would all look at Rondo's defense and shake their heads in disgust.  He goes for the "star play" on defense way too much. Make a steal?  Great!  You look good.  Let your man go past you three out of the other four times?  No one will notice!  Never box your man out on defense and let him go in for offensive rebounds?  Oh, Rondo needs to rest since he does so much everywhere else.  What a joke.

  When you start talking about how coaches would all look at Rondo's defense and shake their heads in disgust you should know that the coaches are the people who vote for those all-defense teams. The 4 years Rondo was on those all defense teams it's fairly safe to say nba coaches had a significantly different opinion of Rondo's defense than you two, as a large majority of them chose him as one of the best defensive point guards in the league.

[Tr1boy]

"Marcus Smart is a better defender than Rondo"
We have yet to determine this. not saying its not true, but rondo is a 2-time all defensive 1st team and 2 time all defensive 2nd team player. not too many players can claim that.

"Smart is younger, more durable."
We dont know the durability thing yet but maybe.

Did Rondo make 2 time all defensive team bc of his steal and rebound #s or was it bc he was an excellent man to man/multi position capable defender??

  Rondo was among the best defensive point guards in just about every statistical measure you'd find when he made those all defense teams, not just steals and rebounds. DRtg,defensive win shares, synergy sports numbers, even counterpart production on 82games. The coaches felt he was a top defender, the gms felt he was a top defender and the stats backed them up.

And guys like KG, PP,  Perk, Allen had little to do with this? How many times did KG/Perk bail out Rondo?

And what happened to his defense all of a sudden starting from the 2012-2013 season?
Had the decline of peak performance from KG, no Perk had anything to do with this?

Tim i love the way you think it has been "Rondo's" team all along (or at least from 2010 and fwd).  All those assists were manufactured from thin air.  But the truth is some of those buckets were not easy to make.  There weren't like 5 Ray Allens back at that time.

So from 2012-2013 we take out Ray Allen. PP/KG are on a decline due to their age, but still good players. We have Jeff Green and a solid enough roster.  So what happened for the majority of the beginning part of the 2012-2013 season? 

How can a guy (Rondo) have incredible stats for himself , pound the ball as much as he did but we were still losing games, going on ugly losing streaks?  Then when he got injured,  AB and Lee started to play proper man to man defense , the team's defense was much better, ball moving around in the offensive end , we started winning and somehow made the playoffs?

[BballTim]

"Marcus Smart is a better defender than Rondo"
We have yet to determine this. not saying its not true, but rondo is a 2-time all defensive 1st team and 2 time all defensive 2nd team player. not too many players can claim that.

"Smart is younger, more durable."
We dont know the durability thing yet but maybe.

Did Rondo make 2 time all defensive team bc of his steal and rebound #s or was it bc he was an excellent man to man/multi position capable defender??

  Rondo was among the best defensive point guards in just about every statistical measure you'd find when he made those all defense teams, not just steals and rebounds. DRtg,defensive win shares, synergy sports numbers, even counterpart production on 82games. The coaches felt he was a top defender, the gms felt he was a top defender and the stats backed them up.

And guys like KG, PP,  Perk, Allen had little to do with this? How many times did KG/Perk bail out Rondo?

And what happened to his defense all of a sudden starting from the 2012-2013 season?
Had the decline of peak performance from KG, no Perk had anything to do with this?

  Rondo's defense wasn't that bad in the 2012-2013 season. If you'd have watched them play, you'd have seen that he generally spent much of his time guarding the better offensive player in the opponent's back court because the other guards (especially Terry) were playing generally poor defense. The problems with the Celts defense were partly due to new players learning rotations, mainly due to the poor play when KG was on the bench. That's not really Rondo's fault.

Tim i love the way you think it has been "Rondo's" team all along (or at least from 2010 and fwd).  All those assists were manufactured from thin air.  But the truth is some of those buckets were not easy to make.  There weren't like 5 Ray Allens back at that time.

  Most of those baskets were pretty easy to make. Not all of them, but those guys shooting off of Rondo's passes had a "shooting fish in a barrel" look to them.

So from 2012-2013 we take out Ray Allen. PP/KG are on a decline due to their age, but still good players. We have Jeff Green and a solid enough roster.  So what happened for the majority of the beginning part of the 2012-2013 season? 

  Green started out poorly because of his coming back from heart surgery. Pierce and Terry were battling injuries. As I mentioned, the defense fell apart when KG was on the bench, and it took quite a while for the new guys to figure out their rotations.

How can a guy (Rondo) have incredible stats for himself , pound the ball as much as he did but we were still losing games, going on ugly losing streaks?

  I dunno. How did the team go through ugly stretches the 3 previous seasons? How did the team go through ugly stretches when Rondo was out? How did Minny go on ugly stretches when KG was there? Each case is different, and the reasons are typically many.

 

Then when he got injured,  AB and Lee started to play proper man to man defense , the team's defense was much better, ball moving around in the offensive end , we started winning and somehow made the playoffs?

  That's really not what happened. It's true the team's defense got better when AB came back, replacing Rondo with Lee didn't really make the defense better. We didn't move the ball around much better on offense. In terms of winning, the team was all over the map that year. They were wildly inconsistent.

[pokeKingCurtis]

These Rondo apologists act like he can do no wrong.  And if you say one negative thing about him you're "a hater."

It's very much a two way road.

You get called an ignorant homer if you disagree with arguments against Rondo.

NOBODY SAY ANYTHING!

[D.o.s.]

IIRC our best defensive guard lineups last year were Lee and Bradley by a significant margin.

On the other hand, that's a far cry from "rondo plays bad defense."

[playdream]

Yeah we all know that Rondo WAS good , when playing with HoFs

[D.o.s.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hi2PrOCQ7E

[tarheelsxxiii]

The lack of respect for Rondo is wild. While I don't think (sadly) he fits with this rebuild, the dude has proven to be an absolute beast.. on the biggest of stages.

We may not see 18 for 10 years. No joke.

[Eddie20]

"Marcus Smart is a better defender than Rondo"
We have yet to determine this. not saying its not true, but rondo is a 2-time all defensive 1st team and 2 time all defensive 2nd team player. not too many players can claim that.

"Smart is younger, more durable."
We dont know the durability thing yet but maybe.

Did Rondo make 2 time all defensive team bc of his steal and rebound #s or was it bc he was an excellent man to man/multi position capable defender??

  Rondo was among the best defensive point guards in just about every statistical measure you'd find when he made those all defense teams, not just steals and rebounds. DRtg,defensive win shares, synergy sports numbers, even counterpart production on 82games. The coaches felt he was a top defender, the gms felt he was a top defender and the stats backed them up.

And guys like KG, PP,  Perk, Allen had little to do with this? How many times did KG/Perk bail out Rondo?

And what happened to his defense all of a sudden starting from the 2012-2013 season?
Had the decline of peak performance from KG, no Perk had anything to do with this?

  Rondo's defense wasn't that bad in the 2012-2013 season. If you'd have watched them play, you'd have seen that he generally spent much of his time guarding the better offensive player in the opponent's back court because the other guards (especially Terry) were playing generally poor defense. The problems with the Celts defense were partly due to new players learning rotations, mainly due to the poor play when KG was on the bench. That's not really Rondo's fault.

Tim i love the way you think it has been "Rondo's" team all along (or at least from 2010 and fwd).  All those assists were manufactured from thin air.  But the truth is some of those buckets were not easy to make.  There weren't like 5 Ray Allens back at that time.

  Most of those baskets were pretty easy to make. Not all of them, but those guys shooting off of Rondo's passes had a "shooting fish in a barrel" look to them.

So from 2012-2013 we take out Ray Allen. PP/KG are on a decline due to their age, but still good players. We have Jeff Green and a solid enough roster.  So what happened for the majority of the beginning part of the 2012-2013 season? 

  Green started out poorly because of his coming back from heart surgery. Pierce and Terry were battling injuries. As I mentioned, the defense fell apart when KG was on the bench, and it took quite a while for the new guys to figure out their rotations.

How can a guy (Rondo) have incredible stats for himself , pound the ball as much as he did but we were still losing games, going on ugly losing streaks?

  I dunno. How did the team go through ugly stretches the 3 previous seasons? How did the team go through ugly stretches when Rondo was out? How did Minny go on ugly stretches when KG was there? Each case is different, and the reasons are typically many.

 

Then when he got injured,  AB and Lee started to play proper man to man defense , the team's defense was much better, ball moving around in the offensive end , we started winning and somehow made the playoffs?

  That's really not what happened. It's true the team's defense got better when AB came back, replacing Rondo with Lee didn't really make the defense better. We didn't move the ball around much better on offense. In terms of winning, the team was all over the map that year. They were wildly inconsistent.

Tim, but coincidentally everyone seemed to "figure" it all out and subsequently play better the moment Rondo was injured. If it had been a month later then your argument might hold some weight, but it was instantaneous.

WALTHAM, Mass. -- The winning streak is now at six straight and it's impossible to dispute the obvious: The Celtics are playing better without Rajon Rondo.

All the numbers, from defensive efficiency to offensive production, suggest this. Jeff Green, Courtney Lee, Jason Terry and Leandro Barbosa are playing more freely. Kevin Garnett has never looked so efficient. Paul Pierce is playing like he hopped into the Way Back Machine.

The ball movement has been superb and transition opportunities have been more plentiful.

And, yet, conventional wisdom persists. The Boston Celtics can't possibly be better off without their All-Star point guard.

Right?

Let Celtics boss Danny Ainge take it from here.

"We are different without him," Ainge explained. "We're running better now because five guys are running. Honestly, I think we rely on Rondo too much.

These comments don't make me think we can brush their improved play as mere coincidence.

1. Zach Lowe: "I've heard through back channels that Courtney Lee has been really unhappy in Boston, because he feels like the whole offense is Rondo pounding the ball and he doesn't get to do anything."

2.
“Don’t get me wrong,” [Jason Terry] prefaced, “Rajon (Rondo) makes us the best we can possibly be.”

(You can just hear that BUT coming, can’t you?)

“But,” he continued, “now, having multiple ball-handlers out there, it’s just going to make us unpredictable. You don’t know who’s going to handle it. I think the wings are going to get out there and run a little harder. We should be able to play in transition a little more.”

[nickagneta]

What I get off the above quotes is what I remember seeing and that was that often Rondo was on a one man fast break because the rest of the team wasn't running with him. What I get is that the team was relying to much on Rondo to be great and wasn't playing up to the potential they should have been playing at all along. What I remember is that Rondo was playing great and carrying the team, along with KG for the beginning part of that season and the rest of the team was playing extremely poorly.

That's what I remember about the Celtics and Rondo before he blew out his knee. Heck I even remember the night he blew out his knee Rondo going back out there and playing with the torn ACL because he is such a warrior and was so pivotal to what they were doing earlier that season.

[BballTim]

IIRC our best defensive guard lineups last year were Lee and Bradley by a significant margin.

On the other hand, that's a far cry from "rondo plays bad defense."

  That's somewhat misleading because the team's defense varied so much over the course of the year. We were one of the worst teams in the league early in the season and one of the best teams late in the season. The bulk of that was due to improved play from some of our bigs. Early in the year the defense got killed when KG was on the bench, late in the season it played well when KG was on the bench. Rondo played the bulk of his minutes early in the season when the team had problems and the other guys played more minutes later in the year when our bigs were playing better defense. That has a large effect on their total numbers.

[DRJ1]

The good news is that the Rondo question will be definitively answered, very soon. Reason: Coach Stevens' new system is so dramatically different from the way Rondo has played in the past. Therefore, when RR comes back, we can expect that it will be immediately obvious whether or not he is fitting into the new system. I think we'll know after one game. Maybe two or three, but I think one will suffice.

If Rondo does the old walk-pound-and-wait routine, then that will be that. But if he runs-passes-and-presses like the whole team is doing now -- because that's what the coach expects -- then I think this team will end up surprising the hell out of everyone. (And man, THAT would be SO much fun to watch!)

[Tr1boy]

The good news is that the Rondo question will be definitively answered, very soon. Reason: Coach Stevens' new system is so dramatically different from the way Rondo has played in the past. Therefore, when RR comes back, we can expect that it will be immediately obvious whether or not he is fitting into the new system. I think we'll know after one game. Maybe two or three, but I think one will suffice.

If Rondo does the old walk-pound-and-wait routine, then that will be that.

+1

[cb8883]

I want Pressey running the point over Banks 2.0 or Rondo. Helps the greater cause for Towns and Okafor. I'm not sure why he isn't getting more tread in these games. He's eventually going to settle into becoming a nice backup but just because the Celtics made the wrong choice at #6 doesn't mean they have to shove Marcus down our throats.

[BballTim]

"Marcus Smart is a better defender than Rondo"
We have yet to determine this. not saying its not true, but rondo is a 2-time all defensive 1st team and 2 time all defensive 2nd team player. not too many players can claim that.

"Smart is younger, more durable."
We dont know the durability thing yet but maybe.

Did Rondo make 2 time all defensive team bc of his steal and rebound #s or was it bc he was an excellent man to man/multi position capable defender??

  Rondo was among the best defensive point guards in just about every statistical measure you'd find when he made those all defense teams, not just steals and rebounds. DRtg,defensive win shares, synergy sports numbers, even counterpart production on 82games. The coaches felt he was a top defender, the gms felt he was a top defender and the stats backed them up.

And guys like KG, PP,  Perk, Allen had little to do with this? How many times did KG/Perk bail out Rondo?

And what happened to his defense all of a sudden starting from the 2012-2013 season?
Had the decline of peak performance from KG, no Perk had anything to do with this?

  Rondo's defense wasn't that bad in the 2012-2013 season. If you'd have watched them play, you'd have seen that he generally spent much of his time guarding the better offensive player in the opponent's back court because the other guards (especially Terry) were playing generally poor defense. The problems with the Celts defense were partly due to new players learning rotations, mainly due to the poor play when KG was on the bench. That's not really Rondo's fault.

Tim i love the way you think it has been "Rondo's" team all along (or at least from 2010 and fwd).  All those assists were manufactured from thin air.  But the truth is some of those buckets were not easy to make.  There weren't like 5 Ray Allens back at that time.

  Most of those baskets were pretty easy to make. Not all of them, but those guys shooting off of Rondo's passes had a "shooting fish in a barrel" look to them.

So from 2012-2013 we take out Ray Allen. PP/KG are on a decline due to their age, but still good players. We have Jeff Green and a solid enough roster.  So what happened for the majority of the beginning part of the 2012-2013 season? 

  Green started out poorly because of his coming back from heart surgery. Pierce and Terry were battling injuries. As I mentioned, the defense fell apart when KG was on the bench, and it took quite a while for the new guys to figure out their rotations.

How can a guy (Rondo) have incredible stats for himself , pound the ball as much as he did but we were still losing games, going on ugly losing streaks?

  I dunno. How did the team go through ugly stretches the 3 previous seasons? How did the team go through ugly stretches when Rondo was out? How did Minny go on ugly stretches when KG was there? Each case is different, and the reasons are typically many.

 

Then when he got injured,  AB and Lee started to play proper man to man defense , the team's defense was much better, ball moving around in the offensive end , we started winning and somehow made the playoffs?

  That's really not what happened. It's true the team's defense got better when AB came back, replacing Rondo with Lee didn't really make the defense better. We didn't move the ball around much better on offense. In terms of winning, the team was all over the map that year. They were wildly inconsistent.

Tim, but coincidentally everyone seemed to "figure" it all out and subsequently play better the moment Rondo was injured. If it had been a month later then your argument might hold some weight, but it was instantaneous.

WALTHAM, Mass. -- The winning streak is now at six straight and it's impossible to dispute the obvious: The Celtics are playing better without Rajon Rondo.

All the numbers, from defensive efficiency to offensive production, suggest this. Jeff Green, Courtney Lee, Jason Terry and Leandro Barbosa are playing more freely. Kevin Garnett has never looked so efficient. Paul Pierce is playing like he hopped into the Way Back Machine.

The ball movement has been superb and transition opportunities have been more plentiful.

And, yet, conventional wisdom persists. The Boston Celtics can't possibly be better off without their All-Star point guard.

Right?

Let Celtics boss Danny Ainge take it from here.

"We are different without him," Ainge explained. "We're running better now because five guys are running. Honestly, I think we rely on Rondo too much.

  Except the team didn't "figure it all out" and subsequently play better when Rondo was out. They had a brief hot streak, which wasn't surprising because they were a streaky team. Sometimes I think you're under the impression the season ended after that winning streak. It didn't, and the Celts had a losing record over the rest of the year.

These comments don't make me think we can brush their improved play as mere coincidence.

1. Zach Lowe: "I've heard through back channels that Courtney Lee has been really unhappy in Boston, because he feels like the whole offense is Rondo pounding the ball and he doesn't get to do anything."

2.
“Don’t get me wrong,” [Jason Terry] prefaced, “Rajon (Rondo) makes us the best we can possibly be.”

(You can just hear that BUT coming, can’t you?)

“But,” he continued, “now, having multiple ball-handlers out there, it’s just going to make us unpredictable. You don’t know who’s going to handle it. I think the wings are going to get out there and run a little harder. We should be able to play in transition a little more.”

  Yes, their unpredictability was important to the run they went on after Rondo went out. The team radically changed their offense mid-season, which is pretty rare, and it took the rest of the league a little while to figure things out. They did figure the Celts out, which led to the improvements in offense being short-lived, culminating in the team getting smothered in the playoffs by a bad defensive team.

  One thing that's worth noting was the comment by Terry about how the wings were going to run harder now that Rondo was out in order to get more transition opportunities. The bigs also talked about how they were going to try and outlet the ball faster. Again, this strategy was only effective for a few games until the other teams figured it out,  but it would have been nice if they'd done more of that when their best transition player was on the court.