Rondo goes through full practice

[hwangjini_1]

Boy, the debate rages.  A couple of questions seem to remain unresolved and will likely remain so.  To recap:

From a won-loss record standpoint, there is a fairly large sample of games with Rondo in and Rondo out.  In these games, paradoxically, we did better in the games that Rondo did not play.  (We also averaged more assists in the games that Rondo did not play).  It is impossible to single out Rondo but if you compare it to say games KG did not play, where there is a big W-L impact, you have to conclude (at a minimum) that Rondo did not make those teams better by as much as many assume and you could even take the numbers and posit the extreme that Rondo made the teams worse.

That was then, this is now.  On this team, I think Rondo will really be the best player and will impact w-l more but his flaws will still be exploited by the other teams.

good post that highlights a key question on rondo and the celtics' w/l. for the past few seasons rondo being on the floor did not result in the team having better record, which, as you point out, KG did.

we can speculate differently on the past, but we shouldn't ignore it. as for the future, let's raise a slightly different set of questions.

my questions begin with the realization that rondo has not recently elevated the celtics' w/l record. so, did rondo change his style of play in the past few years? if so, how and why?

is this season's team more suited to the current style of play of rondo? or will rondo need to change his style to suit the current team? again, if so how and why?

other good questions can and should be raised here, but i only wanted to get our discussion moving in a slightly different direction than "rondo sucks. discuss."

[DarkAzcura]

Boy, the debate rages.  A couple of questions seem to remain unresolved and will likely remain so.  To recap:

From a won-loss record standpoint, there is a fairly large sample of games with Rondo in and Rondo out.  In these games, paradoxically, we did better in the games that Rondo did not play.  (We also averaged more assists in the games that Rondo did not play).  It is impossible to single out Rondo but if you compare it to say games KG did not play, where there is a big W-L impact, you have to conclude (at a minimum) that Rondo did not make those teams better by as much as many assume and you could even take the numbers and posit the extreme that Rondo made the teams worse.

That was then, this is now.  On this team, I think Rondo will really be the best player and will impact w-l more but his flaws will still be exploited by the other teams.

good post that highlights a key question on rondo and the celtics' w/l. for the past few seasons rondo being on the floor did not result in the team having better record, which, as you point out, KG did.

we can speculate differently on the past, but we shouldn't ignore it. as for the future, let's raise a slightly different set of questions.

my questions begin with the realization that rondo has not recently elevated the celtics' w/l record. so, did rondo change his style of play in the past few years? if so, how and why?

is this season's team more suited to the current style of play of rondo? or will rondo need to change his style to suit the current team? again, if so how and why?

other good questions can and should be raised here, but i only wanted to get our discussion moving in a slightly different direction than "rondo sucks. discuss."

In 12-13, the Celtics were straight up inconsistent. A lot of people like to bring up the fact that the Celtics lost 6 in a row with Rondo and immediately won 6 in a row without him. That's ignoring the fact that the Celtics won 6 in a row with Rondo right before they lost 6 in a row with him. So we won 6, lost 6, won 6. Two streaks with Rondo. One without. They were streaky as a team, and it's not fair to hold this season against Rondo. A large reason why the Celtics' offense struggled was because Doc did not adjust the offense properly. He needed to put more emphasis on 3PT shooting to make up for the lack of aggression the C's showed as they aged. Year by year, the Celtics FTr pretty much dropped as a whole but so did their 3PAr. This speaks volumes about a coach unwilling to adjust or a front office that didn't bring the proper pieces in. If your team isn't shooting 3s or drawing fouls, your offense is going to suck in today's NBA even with the best playmaker in the game.

I'd prefer the ball not stick to Rondo's hands for 15+ seconds, but that was always an exaggerated claim. The plays called by Doc for mid-range shots was the actual annoying thing. Way too much of it. An example of a team properly adjusting is the Spurs. As Duncan and Ginobili aged, Pop swung for the fences and turned the offense into a 3PT shooting machine. He did this because he recognized that his top players couldn't play as aggressively without suffering injuries. It allowed him to play his top guys less minutes and less aggressively and resulted in a much more fluid offense.

I don't know why anyone bothers to count 13-14. Recovery from an ACL injury is tough.

Anything before these two years, and Rondo generally had a positive impact on the Celtics. One off year and a ton of Rondo haters came out of the woodwork screaming "see, I told you he wasn't that good". I'm not speaking to you in this instance, Vermont Green, because I don't see you as one of those people.

To answer your question, hwangjini, Rondo did not change his style much if at all. Doc just had no idea how to adjust his offense for an aging roster. Like I said lowering your team's FTr and 3PAr is just a recipe for disaster offensively. Rondo had little to no control with this. Doc was never a stat guy.

Part of the reason the Celtics played worse without KG and about the same without Rondo in the last Doc season was because we were primarily a defensive team. Is it really worth talking about our offense going from mid 20s to low 20s in the rankings with and without Rondo? There's much more wrong with that offense than Rondo if we are in the bottom third regardless. It doesn't mean he has no impact. It probably means the offense was poorly designed more than anything, which I've always felt. A lot of people felt that way (remember peak-a-boo hate with Ray?).

For this season, the system fits Rondo better. Hell, it fits any player better. Stevens recognizes we don't have a lot of players who can iso and get to the line. Smart potentially can. Turner can. No one else really can consistently. If your team can't do that consistently, you need to turn to 3PT shooting for efficiency reasons. It doesn't mean you throw mid-range shooting out the window, but 3PT shooting needs a heavy emphasis, which we've seen in pre-season. Rondo's smart. He should be able to adjust to that kind of offense because it benefits him and the team more than ever before despite being less talented at the top.

The other thing rarely talked about is that Doc's de-emphasis on offensive rebounding really hurt the Celtics' ORTG a ton. Offensive rebounds are apart of the ORTG statistic, which is how teams are ranked offensively generally. I'm okay with the de-emphasis because we were an old team that needed to get back on defense quickly. I wish people would understand that, though, because the team's ORTG would be much higher if they were even average on the offensive boards. This is obviously not Rondo dependent.

[SHAQATTACK]

I don't think Rondo will be   holdin the ball as much...as in Docs game,,,,,..the rest of the team is sprinting down court like crazy every time down court .

If he does ...he will really stick out ..like a sore thumb .......unless he is really out of shape .

I see Rondo getting caught up in fast paced ball movement offense and blending in.

[BballTim]

Boy, the debate rages.  A couple of questions seem to remain unresolved and will likely remain so.  To recap:

From a won-loss record standpoint, there is a fairly large sample of games with Rondo in and Rondo out.  In these games, paradoxically, we did better in the games that Rondo did not play.  (We also averaged more assists in the games that Rondo did not play).  It is impossible to single out Rondo but if you compare it to say games KG did not play, where there is a big W-L impact, you have to conclude (at a minimum) that Rondo did not make those teams better by as much as many assume and you could even take the numbers and posit the extreme that Rondo made the teams worse.

That was then, this is now.  On this team, I think Rondo will really be the best player and will impact w-l more but his flaws will still be exploited by the other teams.

  I don't think that the team was consistent enough in either season to draw any meaningful conclusions. You have a large sample size, but you're basically sampling garbage. Last year the team started out 12-14 and were leading the division for a while. Prior to Rondo coming back they lost 12 of 14 and were pretty much in a free fall. For whatever reason, the rest of the roster was playing significantly worse when Rondo came back than they had been earlier in the season, including a significant dropoff on defense.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I recall don't liking how Rondo was playing in 2012-2013. I thought through the first half of that season, him and Pierce were really disrupting our pace and ball-movement. It was very evident how it picked up when we went to our second unit, as inconsistent as they were (talent wise).

Doc Rivers was also a big negative that season, to me his worst coaching job by far. Then you had Collins getting significant STARTER minutes, which was ridiculous to say the least.

You had Lee who for some reason his shot wasn't falling, Jason Terry was being completely misused and paired up with Rondo too often for my taste, my least favorite guard combo we had on that team by far.

When Rondo went down, it showcased what I've been seeing from our second unit, particularly when Bradley returned and it kept working for a while. It's a style of play that Rondo would thrive in, but for some reason he wasn't doing it (we can play the blame game, it was Doc, it was Rondo, etc., etc.) but at the end of the day what mattered is that it wasn't happening.

Then Doc got this bright idea that we should give Avery Bradley more offensive responsibilities, pretty much labeling him his primary PG and playmaker... and all went to hell from there on, including his defense.

Also people are ignoring Green's rise that season, particularly his improvement in January and from there on very good at times very dominant 2nd half of the season on both sides of the floor.

Oh and Bass was terrible until the end of the season.

[Vermont Green]

Boy, the debate rages.  A couple of questions seem to remain unresolved and will likely remain so.  To recap:

From a won-loss record standpoint, there is a fairly large sample of games with Rondo in and Rondo out.  In these games, paradoxically, we did better in the games that Rondo did not play.  (We also averaged more assists in the games that Rondo did not play).  It is impossible to single out Rondo but if you compare it to say games KG did not play, where there is a big W-L impact, you have to conclude (at a minimum) that Rondo did not make those teams better by as much as many assume and you could even take the numbers and posit the extreme that Rondo made the teams worse.

That was then, this is now.  On this team, I think Rondo will really be the best player and will impact w-l more but his flaws will still be exploited by the other teams.

  I don't think that the team was consistent enough in either season to draw any meaningful conclusions. You have a large sample size, but you're basically sampling garbage. Last year the team started out 12-14 and were leading the division for a while. Prior to Rondo coming back they lost 12 of 14 and were pretty much in a free fall. For whatever reason, the rest of the roster was playing significantly worse when Rondo came back than they had been earlier in the season, including a significant dropoff on defense.

I agree with the constituency that BBalTim is speaking to here in that even though yes, it is a very large sample, you can't draw a conclusion that the Celtics lose more because Rondo dribbles too much.  That is not my point.

My point is that Rondo was not as important a factor in the success of the team as many people appear to believe.  Clearly if he was, the difference between him in or him out would out weigh all of the other less important variables and you would see the team doing better with him in the line up vs. him not.  That I think is indisputable if you think of it from a mathematical standpoint.  You have independent and dependent variables and each of the independent variable (such as each player, injuries, and even chance) has a unique sensitivity to the dependent variables that you consider (in this case wins).

He11, Jordan Crawford had a bigger impact than Rondo.  When Crawford was playing like a player of the week, he impacted the team to a 12-14 record (I think was noted above).  When Crawford came back down to earth (or other teams adjusted), the team came back down to earth.  This doesn't mean that Crawford is better than Rondo (although for that stretch, he played as well as Rondo typically did) as the team in question was not as good so it was easier for him to move the needle so to speak.

I don't believe that I understand all of the variables that are in play that are resulting in the team not winning as much when Rondo is on the court but I think what happens is that Rondo brings positives and negatives.  The positives (assists, rebounds, points) are easy to count but the negatives (less ball movement, defenses sagging off) are things that can't be counted and you only see them if you pay attention to the game.  I don't want to come off as condescending by implying that I am the only one who watches the games and picks up on these nuances but I think in general, fans are more influenced by "countable" variables (in this era of fantasy sports) and some of the on court nuance is lost.

Anyway, I think Rondo is a very talented but flawed player.  I believe he will be the best player on this team but that says more about the team than about Rondo.  I look forward to seeing how he adjusts to being really the best player on the team.  What is going to happen as he looks to score more?  Will other teams actually cover him?

It is a big year for Rondo.

[D.o.s.]

Rondo's only played ~30 games post-surgery. His effectiveness remains to be seen.

[BballTim]

Boy, the debate rages.  A couple of questions seem to remain unresolved and will likely remain so.  To recap:

From a won-loss record standpoint, there is a fairly large sample of games with Rondo in and Rondo out.  In these games, paradoxically, we did better in the games that Rondo did not play.  (We also averaged more assists in the games that Rondo did not play).  It is impossible to single out Rondo but if you compare it to say games KG did not play, where there is a big W-L impact, you have to conclude (at a minimum) that Rondo did not make those teams better by as much as many assume and you could even take the numbers and posit the extreme that Rondo made the teams worse.

That was then, this is now.  On this team, I think Rondo will really be the best player and will impact w-l more but his flaws will still be exploited by the other teams.

  I don't think that the team was consistent enough in either season to draw any meaningful conclusions. You have a large sample size, but you're basically sampling garbage. Last year the team started out 12-14 and were leading the division for a while. Prior to Rondo coming back they lost 12 of 14 and were pretty much in a free fall. For whatever reason, the rest of the roster was playing significantly worse when Rondo came back than they had been earlier in the season, including a significant dropoff on defense.

I agree with the constituency that BBalTim is speaking to here in that even though yes, it is a very large sample, you can't draw a conclusion that the Celtics lose more because Rondo dribbles too much.  That is not my point.

My point is that Rondo was not as important a factor in the success of the team as many people appear to believe.  Clearly if he was, the difference between him in or him out would out weigh all of the other less important variables and you would see the team doing better with him in the line up vs. him not.  That I think is indisputable if you think of it from a mathematical standpoint.  You have independent and dependent variables and each of the independent variable (such as each player, injuries, and even chance) has a unique sensitivity to the dependent variables that you consider (in this case wins).

  I think, to a certain extent, you're dismissing the "other less important variables" too easily. For instance, for the first few months of the season the defense was terrible when KG was out, like 10+ points worse in defensive efficiency. Jeff Green was basically a non-factor on offense until January, and PP went through a month or so of poor offense in Dec/Jan. This apparently seems fairly trivial to you, but consider that if our offense and defense combined to be a total of 5 ppg better last year we'd have probably had a winning record.

He11, Jordan Crawford had a bigger impact than Rondo.  When Crawford was playing like a player of the week, he impacted the team to a 12-14 record (I think was noted above).  When Crawford came back down to earth (or other teams adjusted), the team came back down to earth.  This doesn't mean that Crawford is better than Rondo (although for that stretch, he played as well as Rondo typically did) as the team in question was not as good so it was easier for him to move the needle so to speak.

  Jordan Crawford had a brief stretch of basketball where he played significantly better than he normally does. He may have been somewhat more effective than Rondo while Rondo's play was trying to come back from a knee injury. I don't think that's anything to get overly excited about.

I don't believe that I understand all of the variables that are in play that are resulting in the team not winning as much when Rondo is on the court but I think what happens is that Rondo brings positives and negatives.  The positives (assists, rebounds, points) are easy to count but the negatives (less ball movement, defenses sagging off) are things that can't be counted and you only see them if you pay attention to the game.  I don't want to come off as condescending by implying that I am the only one who watches the games and picks up on these nuances but I think in general, fans are more influenced by "countable" variables (in this era of fantasy sports) and some of the on court nuance is lost.

  I don't think you have to watch a game with rapt attention to know that teams sag off of Rondo. I think that very few people (if any) who participate in these discussions are unaware of it. The nuance seems to be in determining how that effects the game. You can't really evaluate it on it's own, you more have to evaluate the overall effect of Rondo's skills and flaws.  For instance, just look at how it affects Rondo's play. There would be multiple ways a defense could hamper Rondo's game by playing off of him. The distance would make it easier to contain his dribble penetration, make it harder for Rondo to complete his passes, and make it harder for Rondo's teammates to score after he passes them the ball.

  Is there any evidence that this happens? Not really. Teams don't keep Rondo out of the lane, and they don't stop his getting assists. Plain and simple. You can argue that both of these things would be easier for Rondo if he was more of a shooter and you'd be right. But that kind of thing applies to all players, and it's probably more nuanced than noticing Rondo's defender laying off of him. For instance, does it hurt the offense of the Spurs/Thunder/Bulls that players like Parker/Westbrook/Rose don't have Rondo's court vision and passing ability? Undoubtedly. Is it any easier to quantify that than it is to quantify how much Rondo's shooting affects the Celts offense? Unlikely. Does that effect on their game ever occur to you? I'd guess not.

[Vermont Green]

I think, to a certain extent, you're dismissing the "other less important variables" too easily. For instance, for the first few months of the season the defense was terrible when KG was out, like 10+ points worse in defensive efficiency. Jeff Green was basically a non-factor on offense until January, and PP went through a month or so of poor offense in Dec/Jan. This apparently seems fairly trivial to you, but consider that if our offense and defense combined to be a total of 5 ppg better last year we'd have probably had a winning record.

But that is the whole point.  KG is an important variable.  He moved the w-l needle more than any other player with PP a close second (although there were not many cases where PP was out during that era so that is just my opinion with no stats to support it, only my observation of the games).  But isn't saying that Jeff Green not playing well is as big a factor on whether the team wins or loses as Rondo playing or not playing really confirming that Rondo was not that big of a factor?  Jeff Green was a back up small forward sometime PF and him having a stretch of off games is the reason the team wins or loses?

Rondo did not move the w-l needle.  For whatever reason, he did not create enough of an impact to overcome all of the other variables that were in play.  During the big 3 era, that to me is not terribly surprising, maybe a little surprising, because I believe that Pierce and KG were the two that made the big impact.  Now with this team and last season, Rondo should be making a bigger impact but last season, he did not.  He made less of an impact than Jordan Crawford.

So the explanation for that is that Crawford played for a couple of months way over his head (true) and Rondo was not himself because he was coming back from injury (the later I am not convinced of, he look fine to me).

This is a big season for Rondo to show what he can do as the best player on the team.  I don't think anyone is going to believe that Rondo is great but we are losing because Jeff Green is not playing well.  There will be nights that Jeff Green sleep walks but that cannot be an excuse for why the team didn't win more with Rondo back.

[BballTim]

I think, to a certain extent, you're dismissing the "other less important variables" too easily. For instance, for the first few months of the season the defense was terrible when KG was out, like 10+ points worse in defensive efficiency. Jeff Green was basically a non-factor on offense until January, and PP went through a month or so of poor offense in Dec/Jan. This apparently seems fairly trivial to you, but consider that if our offense and defense combined to be a total of 5 ppg better last year we'd have probably had a winning record.

But that is the whole point.  KG is an important variable.  He moved the w-l needle more than any other player with PP a close second (although there were not many cases where PP was out during that era so that is just my opinion with no stats to support it, only my observation of the games).  But isn't saying that Jeff Green not playing well is as big a factor on whether the team wins or loses as Rondo playing or not playing really confirming that Rondo was not that big of a factor?  Jeff Green was a back up small forward sometime PF and him having a stretch of off games is the reason the team wins or loses?

Rondo did not move the w-l needle.  For whatever reason, he did not create enough of an impact to overcome all of the other variables that were in play.  During the big 3 era, that to me is not terribly surprising, maybe a little surprising, because I believe that Pierce and KG were the two that made the big impact.  Now with this team and last season, Rondo should be making a bigger impact but last season, he did not.  He made less of an impact than Jordan Crawford.

  I think you're confusing the tail end of the big three era with the entire big three era. But also, KG's been our only viable big over 6-9 for much of his time here. It's not just how good players are, but how bad their replacements are. For much of the Bird era Parrish "moved the w/l meter" more than Bird did because our backup forwards (like Wedman) were very good but our backup centers were very poor. I don't think that's a very good indication of those players relative impact on the game.

[Eddie20]

I think, to a certain extent, you're dismissing the "other less important variables" too easily. For instance, for the first few months of the season the defense was terrible when KG was out, like 10+ points worse in defensive efficiency. Jeff Green was basically a non-factor on offense until January, and PP went through a month or so of poor offense in Dec/Jan. This apparently seems fairly trivial to you, but consider that if our offense and defense combined to be a total of 5 ppg better last year we'd have probably had a winning record.

But that is the whole point.  KG is an important variable.  He moved the w-l needle more than any other player with PP a close second (although there were not many cases where PP was out during that era so that is just my opinion with no stats to support it, only my observation of the games).  But isn't saying that Jeff Green not playing well is as big a factor on whether the team wins or loses as Rondo playing or not playing really confirming that Rondo was not that big of a factor?  Jeff Green was a back up small forward sometime PF and him having a stretch of off games is the reason the team wins or loses?

Rondo did not move the w-l needle.  For whatever reason, he did not create enough of an impact to overcome all of the other variables that were in play.  During the big 3 era, that to me is not terribly surprising, maybe a little surprising, because I believe that Pierce and KG were the two that made the big impact.  Now with this team and last season, Rondo should be making a bigger impact but last season, he did not.  He made less of an impact than Jordan Crawford.

  I think you're confusing the tail end of the big three era with the entire big three era. But also, KG's been our only viable big over 6-9 for much of his time here. It's not just how good players are, but how bad their replacements are. For much of the Bird era Parrish "moved the w/l meter" more than Bird did because our backup forwards (like Wedman) were very good but our backup centers were very poor. I don't think that's a very good indication of those players relative impact on the game.

I think Vermont Green is right and you're definitely overvaluing Rondo's impact. You can replace Rondo with many players and the end result will be the same. Sure you'll lose passing and overall ballhandling, but you'll likely gain in shooting, scoring, and more likely better offensive flow/ball movement minus a player that dominates the ball as much.

On a team with a bunch of good shooters you want Rondo, on a team without many of those Rondo's game doesn't mesh as well. Don't think it's a coincidence that our record with Rondo has been worse than without since the 12-13 season. A season where we lost Allen and KG and Pierce declined further.

[sed522002]

For much of the Bird era Parrish "moved the w/l meter" more than Bird did because our backup forwards (like Wedman) were very good but our backup centers were very poor. I don't think that's a very good indication of those players relative impact on the game.

Very good point. KG was/is a great player, but he didn't have any real help at his position. That's one of the main things us posters complained about the last few years. We couldn't afford for him to have an injury or sit on the bench too long because the drop off in talent at his position was extremely noticeable.

[sed522002]

I think, to a certain extent, you're dismissing the "other less important variables" too easily. For instance, for the first few months of the season the defense was terrible when KG was out, like 10+ points worse in defensive efficiency. Jeff Green was basically a non-factor on offense until January, and PP went through a month or so of poor offense in Dec/Jan. This apparently seems fairly trivial to you, but consider that if our offense and defense combined to be a total of 5 ppg better last year we'd have probably had a winning record.

But that is the whole point.  KG is an important variable.  He moved the w-l needle more than any other player with PP a close second (although there were not many cases where PP was out during that era so that is just my opinion with no stats to support it, only my observation of the games).  But isn't saying that Jeff Green not playing well is as big a factor on whether the team wins or loses as Rondo playing or not playing really confirming that Rondo was not that big of a factor?  Jeff Green was a back up small forward sometime PF and him having a stretch of off games is the reason the team wins or loses?

Rondo did not move the w-l needle.  For whatever reason, he did not create enough of an impact to overcome all of the other variables that were in play.  During the big 3 era, that to me is not terribly surprising, maybe a little surprising, because I believe that Pierce and KG were the two that made the big impact.  Now with this team and last season, Rondo should be making a bigger impact but last season, he did not.  He made less of an impact than Jordan Crawford.

  I think you're confusing the tail end of the big three era with the entire big three era. But also, KG's been our only viable big over 6-9 for much of his time here. It's not just how good players are, but how bad their replacements are. For much of the Bird era Parrish "moved the w/l meter" more than Bird did because our backup forwards (like Wedman) were very good but our backup centers were very poor. I don't think that's a very good indication of those players relative impact on the game.

I think Vermont Green is right and you're definitely overvaluing Rondo's impact. You can replace Rondo with many players and the end result will be the same. Sure you'll lose passing and overall ballhandling, but you'll likely gain in shooting, scoring, and more likely better offensive flow/ball movement minus a player that dominates the ball as much.

On a team with a bunch of good shooters you want Rondo, on a team without many of those Rondo's game doesn't mesh as well. Don't think it's a coincidence that our record with Rondo has been worse than without since the 12-13 season. A season where we lost Allen and KG and Pierce declined further.

We sure needed his passing and play making abilities in the playoffs (2012-13) against the Knicks. We could barely bring the ball up the court without a TO or it getting stripped, which in turned effected the offense. Don't know how far they would go,but I think they definitely could have made it out the 1st round.

[shrinkage36]

I think now is the time to let Rondo start no matter what. The experience Smart will get from Rondo is invaluable. There is no reason to hurry Smart along. These two can do dynamic things together, and I wish we all would embrace that.

[Vermont Green]

For much of the Bird era Parrish "moved the w/l meter" more than Bird did because our backup forwards (like Wedman) were very good but our backup centers were very poor. I don't think that's a very good indication of those players relative impact on the game.

Very good point. KG was/is a great player, but he didn't have any real help at his position. That's one of the main things us posters complained about the last few years. We couldn't afford for him to have an injury or sit on the bench too long because the drop off in talent at his position was extremely noticeable.

So when did Rondo have a great back up?  Wasn't there a significant drop off between Rondo and the back up PG?