I'm tired of this "Rondo not fit for the Rox" cliche. Says who? If he joins, he instantly becomes the best perimeter defender and play maker on the team. Harden can play the true SG role and don't have to handle the ball that much, thus less iso/hero ball that a lot of people hate. Plus the nastiness and championship experience. Exactly what we need. Just because he can't shoot the 3's doesn't make him a bad fit. Who says we have to live and die by the 3?
I'm sorry dude - some of us on this forum seriously overrate TJones' potential. He's going to be a VERY good player in this league, but never an allstar.
And he instantly becomes the worst shooting guard on the team and the 2nd or 3rd worst shooter on the entire team. Rondo being on the team would also take the ball out of the hands of the best player on the team and put it in the hands of a player who can't shoot FT's and has a higher turnover percentage than Harden....It would basically be an all around disaster. The Rockets would be better doing nothing at all. The reason all of our guards have to be able to shoot the 3 is for spacing issues. If they know you can't shoot, they know they don't have to guard you out on the perimeter which allows defenders to cheat down clogging lanes so Harden won't be able to drive and they'll be able to harass Howard in the post easier. I'm sorry you are tired of hearing about how terrible a fit Rondo is, but I can assure you I'm more tired of ridiculous 2k style trade suggestions that don't take things like a player's fit on the team into consideration.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Blog: Ainge says he talked to Rondo about a contract extension <a href="http://t.co/dahYg0bt9d">http://t.co/dahYg0bt9d</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23celtics&src=hash">#celtics</a></p>— Boston Globe Celtics (@GlobeCeltics) <a href="https://twitter.com/GlobeCeltics/statuses/426472069862129664">January 23, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This news either means nothing or it may mean a trade is coming. Absolutely meaningless gesture by Ainge. Unless Rondo believes he's going to be only average from now on, he's set to make A LOT MORE MONEY by going into FA. It's not even close. An extension right now would be a max of roughly 2yr/$25mil. An extension in the offseason would more like 3yr/$39mil. A max contract in 2015 will be ~4yr/$90(Dwight Howard money plus maybe a little extra due to higher salary cap). Or more if he re-signs with his team. Either Ainge is just leaking stuff so that when he trades Rondo, he can say "Well we couldn't get him an extension so...", or this is a non-story in the first place.
I only see one team that would sign him to an unreasonable contract. Spoiler Yep you guessed right, the New York Knicks!
If by shooting you mean 3pt shooting, then yes. But 3pt is not the only way you can shoot, now is it? FYI, Rondo's FG% last year is 48.4%, and career number is 48%, despite incapable of shooting the 3s. Guess what, that's the HIGHEST FG% among our guards. Surprise, surprise. If we can reduce the # of 3s we take today, and replace some of them with higher percentage layups or mid-range 2's that Rondo excels at, then why the hell not. Harden doesn't have to drive as much. Why? Rondo is a good driver himself. That will relieve some burden from Harden and hopefully he can put in more effort on the defensive end, or save it for playoffs.
Yes, he's a beast at layups....that still doesn't address the fact that he can't shoot the ball. That's not what would happen though, since Rondo is pathetic shooting the ball, no one will respect him when he's further than 15 feet from the basket meaning there won't be lanes to drive in, also with the ball in Rondo's hands rather than Harden's, you have a less capable player trying to drive into those clogged lanes. Also, even if he draws a foul, he shoots FT's about as well as Dwight Howard so that's no good. He's not as good as Harden is so you'd be making the team weaker. It's the exact same argument for letting Lin control the ball and drive the lane. He's not as good as Harden and you cater to the needs of your best player, not your 5th option.
^^^^^^^^ Rondo is not pathetic shooting the ball. There was a Grantland article posted on this thread which shows that his shooting is not that bad. To make sure we have the best discussion possible, let's stick to factual information. Now he is pathetic shooting 3 pointers and FT's.
No, it showed that one season he hit about 50% on uncontested shots near the FT line.....awesome. No one in the league respects his shooting ability, he might as well be DeAndre Jordan out there as far as opposing defenses are concerned. Also, Grantland is Bill Simmons' site, who is a Celtics homer....of course they are going to put out puff pieces on Celtics players. A lot of the time terrible shooters hit the most shots from around the FT line. Asik is an example of this. Last year Asik shot 60% and 50% in two of those zones where Rondo looked competent for the exact same reason. When you are getting to shoot an uncontested shot that is essentially a free throw, you should hit most of them. Terrible shooters like Rondo and Asik however, can hit about half of them.
Even without the triple threat and with people clogging the paint, his FG% is still up there. Doesn't it tell you his driving ability? And no, it isn't the same argument for letting Lin control the ball. Rondo's ball handling and play making ability is way much better than Lin's. He didn't average double digit assists for nothing. And the most important part that you left off is the impact Rondo brings on the defensive end. Him and Bev taking turns harrassing the opposing guards will wreak havoc to opponents offense.
He get's uncontested shots there because teams can't play up on him or he will easily get to the lane, which is trouble. The best option is to lay off and give him a longer shot, which he CAN make. If you MAKE your shots, contested or not, then you aren't a pathetic shooter. The data shows that Rondo is not a pathetic shooter, no matter how you try to excuse it.
So if the opponents leave him open and he can hit about 50% of those shots, why is that a bad thing? That equals to 33.3% 3PT shooting, not good, but better than most our "shooters"...
The problem is that if he manages to keep up hitting that many from that range rather than it just being a fluke one year thing, people will start guarding him and he'll be a completely worthless shooter. Also, look how he's shot since he's been back. http://vorped.com/bball/index.php/player/shotchart/829?ui=zone14 That's just a whole lot of terrible.
