Happy Birthday, Rajon Rondo!

He has been a fixture with us for years now, so it's easy to forget he's only turning 26 today.

One year of college, starting on a championship team in just his second year. Maybe we should cut him a little slack...?

He has developed a nice, fairly reliable elbow jumper; no longer cringe worthy if he takes it when he's wide open and in rhythm (as he often is because they fall off him and dare him to take it). His defense is a gambling one, but he's one of, if not the, best help defense backcourt player in the league. Does his free throw shooting need help? Does he need to play 4 quarters and not just 2-3? Hell yeah, but overall he's still one of the top 3-5 point guards out of 30 starting point guards. That earns him a B+ to an A, right there. Any improvement in his free throw shooting and sustained proof his jumper is to be feared and not backed off on (along with the retirement of that sneaky little Canadian) and he moves up in the rankings.

bob

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You know Rajon & Perk will party hearty to celebrate. I just hope good judgement is used and restraint!

MD!

For his birthday Rondo gets added to the East All-Star team. Good gift.

I was just reading an opinion piece on Rondo by Christopher L. Gasper, a Columnist with The Globe and thought I would paste a passage from it here...

Here are the current numbers of two soon-to-be 26-year-old point guards, Rondo and Point Guard X.

Rondo is averaging 14.8 points (a career-high), 9.5 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game; he is shooting 48.5 percent from the field, 25 percent from 3-point range and 61.5 percent from the free throw line.

Point Guard X is averaging 15.7 points per game, 7.7 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 2 steals; he is shooting 41.6 percent from the field, .38.3 percent from 3-point range with the same number of 3-pointers this season (57) that Rondo has in his career and 87.6 percent from the free throw line.

Point Guard X is Kyle Lowry of the Houston Rockets. You will never hear Kyle Lowry's name mentioned in any discussion of the top five point guards in the league, rightfully so. But around here we always hear Rondo discussed with such reverence.

To suggest Rondo is closer to Lowry than he is to Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook or Tony Parker is hoops heresy punishable by death by Tommy Point.

But what if it's true? No one builds a team around Kyle Lowry.

My mission wasn't to dump on Rajon on his birthday, and we've often had the discussion here about the value or often lack thereof when it comes to statistics. There are many variables and unmeasured contributions to consider as well. What's more Rondo is a player I enjoy watching and I would rank him as one of my favorites. However, as the team considers where Rondo fits from this point forward, this is food for thought.

The link to the article is here; http://www.boston.com/sports/columnists/gasper/2012/02/two-game_suspen.html

Like I said, I'm a Rondo fan, but this makes an interesting point for debate.

Happy birthday, Rondo!

Sam

NYCelt

Home town loyalties sure can cloud an issue.

Swish

swish wrote:NYCelt

Home town loyalties sure can cloud an issue.

Swish

Swish,

I suppose that's very true.

Regards