On Rondo's assists, Boston is scoring 22.1 points on Rondo's assists in 19.5 assist opportunities and 2.9 turnovers per game. Casspi bringing the ball up the court and chucking it is more efficient than Rondo passing it this season. Granted, Boston isn't a great shooting team and that hurts him...but then again having a PG that can't shoot is a big part of Boston's shooting problems. If Rondo was a Rocket, he would be passing to Dwight, Jones, Asik, and Dmo who have problems shooting. Harden and Parsons will be guarded tightly while three defenders play 2.9.
People that want Rondo think he is still the player he was 4 years. Rondo is not creating high percentage opportunities on offense for his teammates and he himself is a lowly efficient scorer. Defensively, he is still doing great on ball, but he is gambling too much on steals when his man doesn't have the ball.
Yeah, but my guess is that's because box score stats already account for true shooting percentage. Assists should help to increase true shooting percentage--that's how they help you win. But if your set of numbers already includes the figures from which true shooting percentage is derived (shots attempted, shots made; 3 pointers attempted and made, foul throws attempted and made), then assists in and of themselves might not correlate with wins as strongly as other numbers in that set, including both the shooting stats and the possession stats (rebounds). My questions would be: Do assists correlate with higher true shooting percentage? And does a higher shooting percentage correlate with higher wins? My guess is that the answers to both of those questions is yes. Of course, you've got to balance the likely higher shooting percentage from high assist teams with the also likely higher turnovers. That could also explain why the impact of assists is not as great as one would think. My guess is that combining high assists with low turnovers would correlate strongly with high offensive efficiency and therefore with wins.
...and Rondo could help increase the team's assists and lower its turnovers. (Not that I'm necessarily arguing that the Rockets should trade for him.)
The thread that wouldn't die. We could sure use the assists and perimeter defense that Rondo would provide. I'm not in the "but Rondo isn't a good shooter" camp. How many "good shooters" do we really have now? Whenever things don't go smoothly, our players just jack (and usually miss) 3's. But all this becomes academic. Ainge would ask for the moon. What "3rd star" do we pursue? Rondo? Carmelo? Lowry? Or do we shuffle the deck on our sorry-ish putrid bench (Lin, Garcia, Casspi)? Can we package Asik + (probably one of our power forwards) for a player / high first round pick? Can we find a sucker to take Lin off our hands?
His assist number could have something to do with the few future HOFer that played with him on that team. His true value will be evaluated by how far his team goes with a full season under him.
I can only imagine the knee jerk threads if this trade happened and we're rolling out this line up for the next few games with all the current injuries: C: DMo PF: Jones SF: Hamilton SG: Harden PG: Rondo/Canaan (if Rondo is kept on His current back to back game restriction). Bench: Garcia Casspi Daniels Covington Canaan Probably would have picked up Camby and another wing player to fill out the roster, but that's one sorry looking roster to bring out for a 2 week stretch.
And where is our chemistry now? We had a stretch of 5 great games, then fell flat. Chemistry is over-rated. It's the equivalent of hot streak during a game. It does happen and it does help, but you can't hang your hat on it. All the guys have to do is respect one another. Yet all finish with high FG% inside the 3pt line. Lowry is the perfect fit for the Rockets, but Rondo is the more dynamic game changing sort of player. Good question on that 3rd star question. I'd take Melo, myself, because of his post game. Then I take Rondo for his incredible shooting percentage from box corners, then Lowry because he does everything the Rockets need and does it well.
Of course he won't be the same player he was 2 season ago not 4. Dude just came back from an major injury. Therefore it will take some time for him to get his legs back. Plus he have to build chemistry with his teammates and that takes time as well.
A simpler trade for the Rockets would be to swap Jeremy Lin with Indiana for George Hill. I think that trade would benefit both teams. Hill is the 3 and D player that fits best in the Houston system with the added plus of size, which makes him more effective than Beverley. He is a deferential player who can put some points up when called upon, which is sort of the mindset that McHale likes for his PGs. Lin would give Indiana the offensive and creative spark that it needs out of its PG and would have a coach that would probably allow him to handle the ball more to get shots for the bigs. Right now, they rely on Lance Stephenson for playmaking and that isn't working out so well. Lin would get a lot of easy shots for the rest of that team and their offense would improve. Defensively, Lin is not as good as Hill, but he has improved a lot as a man to man defender, and has good size to defend the position. The Indiana coaching staff could definitely work with his tools to make him better. Hill makes $8 million for 2 more years. Lin makes $8.3 million against the cap for 1 year (plus a deferred $6.7 million or so as a deferred payment). In essence, Pacers get cap relief for 1 year (because Lin's contract expires in 2015). Houston takes on an extra year but doesn't have to make that deferred payment. I don't think Lowry would come back to the Houston PG circus. Toronto or New York would be better fits for him. A Rondo trade could happen but it's complicated, and would likely involve Houston losing Parsons (which frankly I think would be ok for the Rockets).
Yes they are because the Rockets create a lot of in the paint opportunities. Rondo does not create many in the paint opportunities. Rondo creates inefficient long twos and threes opportunities. I'd rather have Lin passing to Dwight for a slightly contested paint opportunity than Rondo pass it to Dwight for an open long two opportunity or a heavily contested paint opportunity.
I've seen enough, we NEED Rondo!! <object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="//www.youtube.com/v/3dvUI8Fb21Q?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="//www.youtube.com/v/3dvUI8Fb21Q?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>
The Rockets need a Mike Conley esque PG not Rondo but it will be funny to see how Rondo and Harden can co-exist when Rondo has no jump shot.
