Doolittle-Poor shooting haunts Rubio, Rondo

[DefenseWinsChamps]

http://espn.go.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/13608321/nba-future-holds-poor-shooting-pgs-ricky-rubio-rajon-rondo

In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.

[PhoSita]

It is old news, but still a solid point.  The league has changed.  NBA offenses lean on their point guards for scoring more than ever.  The increased emphasis on the pick-and-roll and drive-and-kick to generate looks at the rim and on the perimeter means that you can't get by with a game manager at point guard -- even one who is a superb, creative passer.

Teams now much prefer to have a guy like Tony Parker / Jeff Teague / Mike Conley at point guard (i.e. guys who get at least 15 points and rarely get more than 6 or 7 assists), rather than the 10 pt / 10 ast double double machines of yesteryear.

Prior to his injury, I think Rondo had what it took to adapt and get inside / to the line often enough to keep a steady offensive flow.  Now that he's lost a step and his free throw line confidence is shattered, he really should try to reinvent himself as a quality backup defensive point guard and game manager.  Becoming a better spot-up three point shooter, so that he can play off-ball without killing the offense, is crucial.

Rubio is just a terrible scorer.  That probably won't change, and it means he'll never be a quality starter at point guard.

[GreenFaith1819]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pToyPkrju1o

Another ESPN article disparaging Rondo.

Old news.

[MBunge]

Teams now much prefer to have a guy like Tony Parker / Jeff Teague / Mike Conley at point guard (i.e. guys who get at least 15 points and rarely get more than 6 or 7 assists), rather than the 10 pt / 10 ast double double machines of yesteryear.

Prior to his injury, I think Rondo had what it took to adapt and get inside / to the line often enough to keep a steady offensive flow.  Now that he's lost a step and his free throw line confidence is shattered, he really should try to reinvent himself as a quality backup defensive point guard and game manager. 

But it's not like Parker is some deadeye marksman.  He's a better shooter than Rondo but he's much better than Rondo at scoring in the lane, something Rondo largely abandoned so he could rack up more assists.

As you point out, though, Rondo free throw shooting has gotten so bad that he can't really look to score in the lane because that gets you sent to the line.

Mike

[D.o.s.]

Right -- you don't have to be a good shooter to be a good scorer, and today's NBA point guard basically needs to be a good scorer.

The real question, though: Should Minny have kept Jonny Flynn instead of Rubio?

[PhoSita]

Teams now much prefer to have a guy like Tony Parker / Jeff Teague / Mike Conley at point guard (i.e. guys who get at least 15 points and rarely get more than 6 or 7 assists), rather than the 10 pt / 10 ast double double machines of yesteryear.

Prior to his injury, I think Rondo had what it took to adapt and get inside / to the line often enough to keep a steady offensive flow.  Now that he's lost a step and his free throw line confidence is shattered, he really should try to reinvent himself as a quality backup defensive point guard and game manager. 

But it's not like Parker is some deadeye marksman.  He's a better shooter than Rondo but he's much better than Rondo at scoring in the lane, something Rondo largely abandoned so he could rack up more assists.

As you point out, though, Rondo free throw shooting has gotten so bad that he can't really look to score in the lane because that gets you sent to the line.

Mike

Agreed.  As D.o.s. said, it's about your ability to pressure a defense and draw defensive attention with skills other than passing.  Doesn't have to be shooting. 

Though TP is one of the best in the league at the mid-range pull-up, and generally scoring in tricky ways near the basket.

[Big333223]

Teams now much prefer to have a guy like Tony Parker / Jeff Teague / Mike Conley at point guard (i.e. guys who get at least 15 points and rarely get more than 6 or 7 assists), rather than the 10 pt / 10 ast double double machines of yesteryear.

I'm nto sure when this was. Winning teams always won in a variety of ways and I don't know that big-assist PG's were ever more dominant than they are now. Dennis Johnson, Mo Cheeks, Kenny Smith, and then the likes of Chauncey Billups and Tony Parker were never part of the Cousy mold but won championships. And that's without getting into Phil Jackson, the most successful coach in the NBA of the last 40 years, who cared so little for pass-first PG's that he ran a system that utlized the likes of Derek Fisher, Ron Harper, BJ Armstrong and John Paxson as championship starters.

Isiah Thomas is an interesting case because he was a big scorer who also put but big assist numbers but his Detroit teams didn't really take off until his assist numbers dropped because he let the ball move around a little more freely (but he still averaged in the neighborhood of 8 per game).

It's not to say the pass-first PG's haven't had success in the league. Magic, Stockton, Kidd, Nash and many others have done a lot of winning in the NBA. But it was never just that one way.

[hwangjini_1]

Right -- you don't have to be a good shooter to be a good scorer, and today's NBA point guard basically needs to be a good scorer.

The real question, though: Should Minny have kept Jonny Flynn instead of Rubio?

flynn never built upon his rookie success (13.5p/g & 4.4 ast/g). by the end of his second year his scoring had dropped to 5.3 p/g and his health was in question.

http://www.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/index.ssf/2013/07/former_syracuse_star_jonny_fly.html

the wolves made unwise and unfortunate choices in the draft that year.

[mmmmm]

Meh.  My humble opinion is that the 'problem' for guards like Rondo and Rubio is from being convinced or told to be something they are not.  Whether it is coaches telling them to or themselves deciding to, to try to become 'shooters' is a mistake.

I firmly believe that it is NOT really and truly necessary for every PG to be a 'shooter' in order to win in the NBA anymore than every big man has to be a 3PT shooter.  Those are misconceptions, imho.

I've followed the NBA very closely since the 70s, watching a lot of different trends and in my opinion the one constant is that players (and the teams they are on) succeed when they do those things that they are best at and fail when they try to do things they are not so good at.

It's a simple truth that even the lowliest NBA player could probably dominate the average non-NBA shmoe in pretty much every skill:  shooting, dribbling, dunking, whatever.  But in the NBA, if a player with less-than-average-for-the-NBA skill in something tries to use that skill, he's going to get whacked.  That's why most 7 footers, despite having ball-handling skills that might put you and your buddies on at the Y gym to shame, should not dribble more than necessary on an NBA court.  That's why a lot of guys who look like great 3PT shooters during workouts for draft scouting videos shouldn't take a single shot outside the arc in the NBA.

You aren't helping your team by trying to do something that you aren't above average at.

A good coach should try to put the players that he has in position to best leverage the talents that they have that are elite.  Not try to pretend he has 5 identical players on the floor.  You win basketball by winning match ups.  The means matching your team's best skill at something against the other team's weakness.

Pass-first PGs like Rondo and Rubio should focus on what they do best and let the rest of the game take care of itself.

[D.o.s.]

Right -- you don't have to be a good shooter to be a good scorer, and today's NBA point guard basically needs to be a good scorer.

That said I do very much agree with your third paragraph and the rest of your post.

[tarheelsxxiii]

Any one can point to his deficiencies relative to other NBA players (which should be taken into context, as some other guy said in some other thread), but Rondo was a very, very bad man at times. He put up playoff performances that we should all be grateful to have witnessed. I can understand where some of the hate / disappointment comes from, but it's genuinely unwarranted.

Women love to define themselves as "contradictions" or "walking anomalies," but realistically, Rondo beats them all to the punch. And the reason is not all that confusing -- he was a very good player on a very good team, he had significant deficiencies he was able to mask on that team, but he also had an X factor that cannot be denied. If someone, somewhere produces stats for big-time moments in big-time games, Rondo would come out really [dang] well.

[Hemingway]

There are just less really good pass first point guards right now. Its a chicken and the egg thing. The league changed to want more scoring from the point guard or there are more scoring point guards now so the league changed. These things go back and forth. a few years from now we will be reading articles about the return of big men post play and pass first point guards. Its just a really really small sample size.

[Big333223]

There are just less really good pass first point guards right now. Its a chicken and the egg thing. The league changed to want more scoring from the point guard or there are more scoring point guards now so the league changed. These things go back and forth. a few years from now we will be reading articles about the return of big men post play and pass first point guards. Its just a really really small sample size.

I tend to think it has more to do with the talent available. The league has moved away from the post-up big, but if Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, and Shaquille O'Neal were all in their primes, I'd bet those teams would still play a lot of post-up ball. Those types of players just aren't out there in the numbers they were in the 80's and 90's.

That combined with changes in the illegal defense rules made spacing and speed more of a priority. Thus, smaller guys are getting more scoring opportunities.

[PhoSita]

There are just less really good pass first point guards right now. Its a chicken and the egg thing. The league changed to want more scoring from the point guard or there are more scoring point guards now so the league changed. These things go back and forth. a few years from now we will be reading articles about the return of big men post play and pass first point guards. Its just a really really small sample size.

I tend to think it has more to do with the talent available. The league has moved away from the post-up big, but if Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, and Shaquille O'Neal were all in their primes, I'd bet those teams would still play a lot of post-up ball. Those types of players just aren't out there in the numbers they were in the 80's and 90's.

That combined with changes in the illegal defense rules made spacing and speed more of a priority. Thus, smaller guys are getting more scoring opportunities.

Good points.

I'd add that the elimination of hand-checking, plus the increased emphasis on the three pointer, means that point guards who can penetrate and force the defense to collapse have a lot more value.  That's the primary way that teams are generating good opportunities at the rim and from deep. 

In the past, it was a lot more important to have a point guard who could slip the ball into tight spaces to shooters coming off screens, and feed the ball into the post for big men with their backs to the basket.

Since the ball-handler is now, more than ever, responsible for pressuring the opposing defense, it is vital that your ball-handler have the ability to score in a variety of ways.  Otherwise, it's too easy for the opponent to play conservative defense.

[D.o.s.]

It's both, but the evolution of the game has nothing to do with a smaller sample size.  The isolation post up is hardly the best offensive option anymore -- so teams don't prioritize it, so players don't prioritize it, so it continues to decline. Barring a major rule change there will, going forward, always be more three-point shooting bigs than low-post specialists.

Hope no one gets offended that I'm talking about evolution.