Rondo Debate Over?

http://www.celticstoday.com/2015/01/rondo-debate-over.html



Rondo Debate Over?


Unofficially, the Haters have won the Rondo debate.  The Celtics are flying (sort of) and the Mavs are dying (four game losing skid, many losses against key opponents in West).  Rondo affected the Mavs much as the Haters predicted - well, actually, as nearly everyone predicted - the Mavs offense, once the league's best, has struggled.  Rondo has hurt the team's spacing and he's confused Carlisle's flow offense with his ball dominant ways and the loss of two key bench guys in the Rondo trade has also hurt the Mavs.  The debate between Haters and Rondo fans seems to be so over, so run and done that it's not even heard anymore.    Smart is the future.  Rondo is the past.

The debate is so over that the Haters have mostly stopped crowing about it.

I'm not really so surprised at how things have turned out.   I tried to talk myself into believing in the Celtics this season,  but I felt that things would go badly.  I think that Danny made a deliberate point of shaming Rondo this summer and this year.   He made a point of focusing on pgs as he prepped for the draft and then he drafted the most NBA ready pg in the draft, clearly Rondo's heir apparent.  Then the first guy he called when free-agency started was a pg.  Then Danny brought Evan Turner in and Stevens groomed Turner to be a point guard.  IT WASN'T EXACTLY SUBTLE!!  And it wasn't hard to figure that the result would be difficulties for Rondo.  Rondo's demeanor is infamously stoic, to put it nicely, and Rondo's approach to the game of basketball can be calculating (the search for triple doubles, assist titles and double digit assist streaks), but underneath that, his game is all heart and his heart had to be hurting when he was playing for the Celtics this year.

So let the Haters crow all they want, or whatever.  They may eat crow yet.  Neither they nor anyone else could have predicted Rondo's historically bad shooting and it's foolish to suggest that this bad shooting proves Haters right.  Yes Rondo's shooting has always caused some problems for his teammates on offense and it was predictable that the resulting 'spacing' problems (Rondo's guy being able to cheat off him too much) would cause some problems for Dallas, as it has this season for the Cs, but Rondo has typically been a decent-to-good shooter from some spots.  This season he has at times shown some improvement on shooting threes, but every other shot, it seems,  has been not just bad, but truly awful.  Rodman level awful.  Or even worse.  Clearly, this has more to do with Rondo's heart and mind than with his actual shooting ability, which actually seemed  to have improved when he first returned from his ACL injury.

Meanwhile there have been some good surprises in Rondo's Dallas sojourn.  The Haters said that Rondo couldn't play defense, but he's been good defensively since he went to Dallas, overall, and at times brilliant.  The Haters said that Rondo couldn't sublimate himself in favor of his star teammates in Dallas, but Rondo has done exactly that, taking a back seat to all four of his fellow starters and accepting without challenge some  late game benchings.   Rondo has set his ego aside to the point where he has given up the assist race, something that I think Haters and fans can agree had to have been close to his heart.  And lately Rondo's game has been showing signs of coming back...




It's not just that he's been making some pretty plays, even dazzling plays.  It's that he's showing flashes of the sort of authoritative play that bodes well.  Slump or no slump, funk or no funk,  Rondo is one of the most talented players in the game and the Mavs are one of the most talented teams in the league.  If Rondo keeps playing tough D and if he starts to play with more authority without sacrificing pace and if his shot starts to fall and if he and his teammates start to 'feel' each other more, this season could turn around for both Rondo and the Mavs.  Life is no fairy tale, but sometimes talent does triumph over adversity.

I hear you cawing crows, Haters and boobirds.  But dawn may be coming and it may be time for you to scatter.   You love the darkness and you leave a lot of crap, but your misrule may be over before you think...



bob
MY NOTE:  It isn't over until it's played out.  Do we retain Crowder?  What comes of the draft picks we got for Nelson and Wright?  How does Dallas fare in the playoffs?  Other than that I think the author's style is more "No" than "Poe". Are the "Haters" those who liked Rondo and HATED the trade or those who hated Rondo?


.

Denial is not only a river in Egypt.

The article has too much emotion for my taste. As far Rondo's post-trade performance, he has hardly set the league on fire in Dallas. He of course needs time to get fully acclimated, but they were 19-8 when he arrived, are 11-9 since, and have fallen to seventh in the West, which is not good.

Dallas fans are getting a feel for the Jekyll/Hyde experience. They can see his obvious gifts, but then there's his shooting and the turnovers. He is 5-19 on free throws with the Mavs, which as we all know is inexplicable and inexcusable.

My guess is that the player who was such an enigma in Boston will continue to be an enigma wherever he goes. Perhaps the way things worked out -- Ainge's inability to bring in another top-level talent last summer, which ultimately led to Ainge trading him -- was a blessing in disguise.

Outside wrote:The article has too much emotion for my taste. As far Rondo's post-trade performance, he has hardly set the league on fire in Dallas. He of course needs time to get fully acclimated, but they were 19-8 when he arrived, are 11-9 since, and have fallen to seventh in the West, which is not good.

Dallas fans are getting a feel for the Jekyll/Hyde experience. They can see his obvious gifts, but then there's his shooting and the turnovers. He is 5-19 on free throws with the Mavs, which as we all know is inexplicable and inexcusable.

My guess is that the player who was such an enigma in Boston will continue to be an enigma wherever he goes. Perhaps the way things worked out -- Ainge's inability to bring in another top-level talent last summer, which ultimately led to Ainge trading him -- was a blessing in disguise.

Outside,

Well said.

If Danny was getting the feel that Rondo was going to walk then whatever deal we got was a good one. We have NO idea what Rondo was texting Melo or his other buds, we certainly have NO idea what Rondo's agent was whispering. GMs aren't allowed to tamper but as we saw with LBJ going to Miami there was no prohibition against DWade doing it. If an agent initiates calls around to get a heat check on what offers his client might attract next season, is that tampering?

So many of Danny's deals are back-end loaded because of the picks it is hard to get a good, short-term vision of whether they are good deals or not.


bob

Well, the AS Break is coming up and Dallas is a 7th seed and we're still a Lotto Pick. DAL has been as high as tied for 3rd and now as low as 7th in the West, which isn't much of a difference out there.

Mark Cuban is a very, very smart business man. Read his bio. Watch him on Shark Tank. He knew exactly what he was getting in that trade and will maximize it by the time the season is out and the playoffs are in full swing. DAL will be in the playoffs, we will not.

Now next season...that's a different story!

db

I get VERY tired of people ( and worst so called writers) who call people "haters" if they think a team is better without a certain player.

you can think the Celtics are better off without Rondo or Green or Pierce or KG or any other player doesn't mean you HATE that player.

the fact that many have to go there in defense of any player, just show how WEAK their argument for said player is , to me.

as for Rondo, at this point...who cares?

he's the solution for the Mav's now or the problem for them.

I can see a "chance" Dallas slipping out of the playoff picture both the Suns and OKC have been playing better and certainly both could pass them. Doubtful perhaps. Dallas is not playing well for sure.

Sometimes chemistry can be a difficult subject

beat

Hi,
The fact that after more than a month after the trade people are still talking about RR from the Celtics fans standpoint is amazing. Just let it go. He's not coming through that door...
As for the Mavs and how they perform, I say this. RR is the main keg in their wheel whether you like him or hate him. And more often than not it takes a lot of time for such player to gel with the rest of the team including the coach. One thing I have no doubt about - come playoffs and RR will go full blast. There're not that many players in NBA who are as intense and competitive as RR.

AK

After the way Rondo played (or did not play) this year for the Celtics, I am very glad that he is gone.

His not playing or leading to 100% was enough for me. No matter what talent you have, not giving everything to your team is just not acceptable to me. His statement about "not having played defense in several years" sealed his fate in my mind for me.

Good trade by Ainge even if he got only a bag of plastic practice balls in return.

I've never seen the sense in wasting one erg of energy on maudlin dwelling on the past—in basketball or any other venture in life. In terms of being a basketball fan, it has always seemed more important to try to follow the lead of the players in one's approach to the game. If a player repeatedly engaged in brooding over the past (especially during games) as much as many among the media and some fans do, he would be out of the league almost immediately.

Rondo's gone. Thanks for the good times, and good luck in the future. That's it! What's next? Danny's made the decisions he's made. We can't change them. That's it! What's next? A rehash is, after all, still only hash.

Sam

If he is going to use the term, haters, (ten times by my count) then he should be forced to use the equally offensive and un-convivial term, apologists, for those on the other side of the fence. Then it would be fair and balanced, insult-wise.

Just sayin'

Cow, I don't recall saying anything about passion for the team.

Sam