Rondo Following Tony Parker's Example, Seems To Be Focusing On Improving Ball Movement

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2014/10/rajon_rondo_following_tony_par.html





Rajon Rondo following Tony Parker's example: Boston Celtics star seems to be focusing on improving ball movement



Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Print Jay King | mjking@masslive.com By Jay King | mjking@masslive.com
on October 30, 2014 at 4:30 PM, updated October 30, 2014 at 4:37 PM



WALTHAM – One interesting note from Rajon Rondo after Wednesday night’s opener: after admiring the way Tony Parker works off the ball, the Boston Celtics star wants to learn from his San Antonio Spurs counterpart.

The comment was interesting for a couple of reasons:

1. Rondo might want to work more off the ball? Whoa. One criticism of his game, fair or otherwise, has been that he can pound the ball too often within the Celtics offense. Being proactive about changing that, maybe by pushing the ball up-court with the pass, is pretty neat.

2. Celtics head coach Brad Stevens really emphasizes ball movement in his offense. Largely because of that – he often points to the Spurs as an example – some folks have even wondered whether his system fits Rondo’s game.

Maybe that doubt is valid, but A) great players often make great systems, and B) the offense looked great against Brooklyn in the opener. The Celtics racked up 121 points, their most since Shaq started at center (and Luke Harangody dropped 17 points off the bench!) on Jan. 7, 2011.

After Thursday's practice, Stevens was asked if he ever had a conversation with Rondo about emulating Parker.

The coach’s response: “First of all, Rajon’s an accomplished guy. So the last thing that I want to do, or that’s fair to him, would be to try to compare him to someone else. Right?

“The only thing I would say is that he’s a guy that studies the game, and he’s a guy that sees what’s successful for both him and other people. And he wants to try to figure out how he can be the most successful he can be. Our emphasis is on, obviously, moving the basketball. And we really feel like – and I think he feels like – the more that he moves it early and gets it back with a live dribble, the better that he is. And we saw that a couple of times (against the Nets).

“Now he was also great going of the high pick-and-roll without any ball movement prior to that. So we’ll just balance that and we’ll weigh that. He didn’t have the ball very long when you looked at his total number of minutes that he had the ball last night, but he used a lot of percentage of possessions because he’s an active guy that we want to get the ball back to.”

During Game 1, Rondo held the ball for 5.9 minutes, 20.3 percent of his court time, far less than his numbers from last year: 7.8 minutes (2nd-most in the league) and 23.2 percent, according to NBA.com. Limited minutes skewed his numbers, but right now (super-duper-small, one-game sample size alert!) a relatively long list of point guards have held the ball longer. The Celtics star still got his stats (13 points, 12 assists and seven rebounds), but he did it with less ball domination.

What does it mean? Maybe very little. Maybe Rondo will revert back to the norm. Maybe he only held the ball so little because the Celtics were pillaging the Nets. Maybe he has changed after studying Parker, hearing Stevens, and completely buying in. I really don’t know. But I'm interested to find out. The Celtics have a load of willing passers and have really popped the ball around through their first nine games (including the exhibition season). Rondo's the best passer, the best player. But he -- and his team -- might benefit if he continues to spread the rock early in the shot clock.

"Ball movement, the way we move the ball, that's going to be huge for us," Jared Sullinger said. "That's going to be our best friend throughout the year."




bob



.

A compelling stat: equal or more production in fewer minutes with the ball.

Sam

Amen, Sam

20.3% of his court time means that around 80% of his court time the ball was either in the air or in someone elses hands.

That seems about right considering that anytime he is on the court he represents 20% of the players on the floor with him.

I expect to see a balance between him playing off the ball more and him initiating the pass for the shot.  Brad is a pretty sharp guy.  He knows that Rondo is the best passer on the team and probbaly in the entire league.  At the same time he does not want to see the offense standing around waiting for Rondo to decide who to pass to.  I would like to see more half court, 3/4 court and full court passes as soon as the Celtics transition from defense to offense.

The team is still a good ways from playing at a tempo that they are capable of playing at.

dboss

Dboss

still to many times the ball handler was the last person to get into the front court minus the occasional help with a pick or the inbounds passer was jogging up.

Agree passing the ball ahead getting into attack mode quicker is important especially if we are talking about a "bigger" front court. Houston with Howard...we need to run him at every chance.

beat