I do think Rondo "padded stats" to a degree. Those wide open shots he would pass up to thread a pass to someone were not intended to make the other player better or help the team win. They were because missing shots was in his head and he preferred from a personal perspective to get an assist added to his stats over a missed shot.
This is basically all in your head though. You don't have any real idea whether it's true or not, and you have to ignore the much more likely explanation (Rondo knows enough about basketball to realize that a made basket (even one that comes from a pass) helps the team more than a missed shot does). It's fairly interesting the number of contrived reasons you see here that are meant to put Rondo in a bad light for doing what anyone would tell you is the correct basketball play. The number of people that buy into that nonsense because they read it on the internet is probably more interesting though.
BballTim is correct, I don't "know" what Rondo is thinking but it is my opinion and what is in my head is there based on what I see on the court. Clearly BballTim does not give much credence to my observations but I can get over that.
Sometimes you make a pass that is not necessary to reward a big man for running. Sometimes it could make sense to get a player going out of a slump by giving him an easy basket even though you had a layup yourself. So there are times when passing for the sake of passing can be strategic.
In Rondo's case, there were times (and a lot this season) where it seemed to me that he was passing just to get an assist or to avoid shooting himself. Passing up a really good shot, wide open usually, for what was not necessarily a better shot. At times it seemed he did this because he was afraid to shoot, other times it seemed like he was doing it to "pad" his assists. (Along the way, Rondo made plenty of really good passes too of course).
He does not seem to be doing the unnecessary passing so far in Dallas and certainly didn't do it last night (although I did not see the whole game). His new team's results are better for it as would have the Celtic's results have.
Aside from FT shooting, your two main criticisms of Rondo seem to be that he's not a great shooter and that he passes up too many shots in order to get assists. These two complaints are clearly at odds with each other.
The team scored at a higher rate off of passes from Rondo than the off of shots from Rondo. That's fairly undeniable. If we have a choice between Rondo taking a fairly open jump shot or someone else taking a fairly open shot we're probably better off with the other shooter. That's the basis for your criticisms of Rondo's shooting, and other teams not respecting Rondo's jumper.
Yet at the same time you want to criticize Rondo for passing up those shots and creating better scoring chances with his passing. That doesn't make a lot of basketball sense. You seem to reconcile this by assigning ulterior motives to Rondo's actions. Like it's somehow a coincidence that Rondo's "selfish stat padding" results in a better scoring opportunity. While you're right that the pass doesn't always lead to a better shot, you also have to consider the possibility that he's miss the open shot that he passed up. Based on everything you've ever said about his shooting, you probably think that miss is a pretty likely outcome.
Yes, my main criticisms of Rondo are that he is a poor shooter and that at times, he over-passes or holds on to the ball too long waiting for the perfect pass, sacrificing ball movement.
Some players shoot too much and don't pass enough. This season especially, Rondo was passing up too many wide open shots when the team needed him to look for his shot more. Apparently, he felt that he was not being asked to play defense (which is ludicrous) so maybe in his mind some how he didn't think he as being asked to score either.
In any event, now that he is on another team and being coached by another coach, suddenly he is rolling out a much more balanced game. More points, fewer assists, fewer rebounds. This is the Rondo that I wanted in Boston but for some reason, Rondo chose not play that way. He is the same talented player, shooting is still his biggest weakness, he is still missing free throws, but he is looking for his shot more and his team is benefiting from this.
Isn't this proving that he should have been doing this all along in spite of your stat mining that says other people taking contested shots is better than Rondo taking open shots?
