The following is a piece discussing Rajon Rondo, his statistics this season, and the ever-present question, "What should the Celtics do with Rajon?"
Rajon Rondo. The guy just can't remove himself from headlines it seems. Either people think he's strange and immature because of the way that he carries himself, or he's the greatest point guard of all time (I'm being facetious, you guys) and needs to stay in Boston until he decides to retire. Either he's throwing the ball at his teammates so they can hit jumpers, or he's throwing the ball at the official. Ok, he only did that once. The point remains, though, that as long as Rajon has been in Boston he has been the object of both (sometimes justified) criticism, and overly high praise. This year is no different. Rajon has proven that he has what it takes to put points up on the board for Boston, and has even willed this team back into some games with his aggressiveness. But all in all he is quite a confusing character.
Rajon has played in 22 games this season for the Celtics. He's endured a wrist injury, and now a two game suspension. The Celtics have clearly missed Rondo (never mind the two games against Orlando), and it is easy to see why folks tout Rondo so highly. He's an exceptional athlete. He's a fantastic defender (two time All-Defensive First Team, and one time All-Defensive Second Team). He's quick, he can get to the rim with relative ease, and he can finish at the rim quite well. Hey, his jumper even at least seems to have improved. Maybe it's because he doesn't have the slight hitch in his release that he has had in past seasons, but he's hitting the mid-range jumper with a lot more consistency than he has for most of his career. It will definitely be interesting to see how he holds up.
This is a sponsored post.
I was tasked with writing a sponsored post about a "game changer" and I honestly couldn't think of a player that fit that description at this very moment. Rondo is probably our best player but he's not playing at the moment and is still struggling with consistency anyway. The 3 Amigos are what they are at this point and the whole team seems to be listing to the side.
So in my view, the only true game changer at this very moment is Danny Ainge. He has in his hands the ability to alter the face of this team. He has the power to impact this season and he is tasked with blazing a trail for the organization in the years ahead.
Change is coming, make no mistake. For as much as I want to see the Big 3 retire as Celtics, I want even more to see the Celtics quickly return to the land of contenders. If Ray and KG want to come back on deeply discounted deals, that's fine with me. But not at the expense of younger players that fit into the long term. So things will look different in Boston sooner or later.
The big question is how soon? Does Danny make a move next month? The trade deadline is March 15 and things sort of kick off on March 1st when many players that were signed in the offseason are eligible to be traded. So that's going to be a very interesting 2 weeks.
Get ready for the Celtics to be discussed in half of all the league rumors. I don't see Ainge deciding to "blow it up" for pennies on the dollar, but I am sure he'll work the phone lines to see what he could get if he decided to hit that flashing red button. If a sweetheart deal comes along, he won't hesitate. That alone makes him a game changer.
I'm a bit of a broken record these days, but I'm going to keep on preaching until I convert you all or get proven wrong. This team has no reason to "blow it up." None.
The facts (as I see them) are these:
1. This team still has an outside shot at doing something in the playoffs.
2. Even if they don't, they are set up well to start over in the summer and start the rebuild process then.
3. Most of the trades that you could come up with right now, you could still make in the offseason - except without the players. For example, instead of trading Ray Allen for a guy making $10M a year, you could let Allen walk and trade a bag of balls for that same $10M per year guy because that's what you can do when you have cap room.
But putting all those facts aside. Say you really, really can't wait the extra few months and you have to get rid of the heart and soul of this team. What would you be looking for in return? Most likely you'd want first round draft picks, right?
Ok folks, let us do an experiment. Let's ask bloggers of other teams if they'd be willing to trade us first round picks for our aging stars. I did just that this week and here's a sampling of the responses I got.
Everyone wants Steve Nash traded to a contender. Everyone, that is, except Steve Nash and the Suns.
No trade noise from Nash - TrueHoop Blog - ESPN
If he asked out after giving eight great years to a Phoenix Suns franchise that has repeatedly made fiscal obligations a priority over championship aspirations, could anyone blame him? "I’m not oblivious to [the chance of] playing on a contender," Nash said. "But at the same time, especially in the position I’m in right now, I feel a sense of loyalty to my team. To go and ask for a trade, it’s not like I’m going to say, ‘Trade me to...’ He made a circling motion with his finger, as if he were about to land it on a destination.
To their credit, Sarver and President of Basketball Operations Babby were forthright in laying out their plan. Among the highlights: " Steve Nash isn't going anywhere, unless he chooses to leave. " The organization has no interest in a full-scale "blowing up" of the team, because its research shows that process can take from eight to 10 years and it has no interest in waiting that long. " It believes a return to being an elite team will come from better drafting, wise personnel moves via trades and free agency, and taking advantage of the significant amount of salary-cap space it will have available next season. "Our goal is to transition back to elite status," Sarver said, "and to get there sooner than later."
The Suns and the Celtics are in different positions. The Celtics at least believe that they can still win a title. The Suns aren't even pretending that they can. The Suns are going to lose their franchise guy sooner or later anyway, so I don't get their rationale about blowing it up taking years to recover from.
That's also why I can sort of understand the Celtics fans' urge to blow it up in Beantown. "Might as well get it over with" is the thinking of those that don't buy our chances as contenders. Still, we have 3 Steve Nashes and a Rondo to boot (so to speak). So I'm not ready to blow it up yet. Then again, maybe I'm in the same denial that the Suns appear to be in.
Paul Pierce has always been the alpha dog in Boston. When Antoine stole the headlines, Pierce was busy doin' work. When Garnett and Allen came to town, Pierce still held the top dog title and delivered as the Finals MVP.
Now Rajon Rondo is the emerging face of the Boston Celtics and there's one small problem with that. Paul Pierce has never been asked to be a support player before. Garnett's main focus is defense and is happy to take whatever shots naturally come his way. Ray runs through picks all day long and if he's open (even for an instant) he expects to get the ball and it behooves the team to get him the ball. Neither one carries the load offensively like Pierce has. Rondo, on the other hand, has to walk a fine line when it comes to "being more aggressive."
In the days past, Rondo's role was to set up the stars. That's fine, but lately they need his help more. So Rondo's being encouraged to "be aggressive." So that means holding onto the ball and looking for his own scoring opportunities more. That might be taking Pierce out of his game. On the flipside, when Pierce is playing his game, it might be forcing Rondo back into his old "distribute and watch" ways.
It appears as though if one is in attack/create mode, the other falls into sit-back-and-watch mode. In the eight games Rondo missed, Pierce attempted 30 percent more shots at the rim. In the six games Rondo has exceeded 15 points, the Celtics point guard has attempted 93 percent more shots at the rim.
It's important to note the Celtics are 0-3 without Pierce and 6-2 in Rondo's absence. Is that to say the Celtics are better without Rondo? Absolutely not. They just haven't figured out how to maximize the impact of one player entering his prime and another entering the so-called twilight of his career. When one's been hot, the other's not.
I hope they can figure this out, since the two are the main pieces left on contract past this year (barring a big trade). I support the efforts of getting Rondo to be more aggressive, but we also need Pierce to stay in attack mode as well. How they do that, exactly, is a challenge for Doc to figure out.
Joakim Noah is certainly not a player that Celtics fans have grown to love. In fact, it's quite the opposite. But as much as they may hate him, he hates the Celtics more.
After losing to the Celtics 95-91 on Sunday, bank on Noah and the Bulls to be ready for revenge in Chicago tonight.
When I walked into the locker room on Sunday, I wasn't surprised to see him as one of the only players left - just sitting in front of his locker staring off as a reporter talked his ear off in French.
"Can I see that box score?" he asked me.
I handed it to him and watched as he looked it over, shaking his head in disgust.
"We shot 38-percent tonight, that sucks," he said.
But doing against the Celtics makes it exponentially worse for Noah.
"Yeah no question I hate losing to the Celtics," Noah said. "I don't know. I'm from New York so I kind of grew up hating the Celtics too."
"It's that green... I don't know. I just don't like that color," he said.
The Celtics are still searching. Whether it's against the Miami Heat or the Detroit Pistons - they are still searching.
For what, you ask?
Who they are on offense.
The players don't really know. Doc Rivers doesn't really know. And far be it from any one of us to have any clue.
Maybe the answer, if ever discovered, isn't one we want to hear anyways.
When it comes to straight up scoring points, the Celtics are ranked 26th in the NBA averaging just 90.2 per game. The four teams behind them? Raptors, Pistons, Hornets, and Bobcats.
The two teams ahead of them? Nets and Wizards.
Talk about a crap sandwich.
The difference though, is that the Celtics play defense - something none of those other teams that are listed do to the same extent. That's why when the C's lose it's on their defense, not their offense - so they say.
The Boston Celtics have struggled at times this year. Some of those struggles have been due to injuries, but for the most part the early season struggles were due to the workhorses being out of shape. The 66-game season was sprung on the team in an instant, and there wasn't nearly enough time for the C's to get back into the gym and prepare themselves for strong start (like they had last season). Instead, perhaps with the way this season has taken place the Celtics are better fit for a late-season peak. Their defensive numbers are better since the rough start, their offensive numbers are better as well, and Paul Pierce is playing like the Paul Pierce we've all come to expect -- an All-Star. Let's take a deeper look.
The first two stats I'll throw out there I will leave open to interpretation from you, the reader.
The Celtics have improved from there terrible start shooting the ball (as a team) to have an eFG% of 49.85, which is good for eighth best in the NBA. The league average is 48.2. On the contrary, the Celtics's are holding their opponents to a league-best 44.58 eFG%. The defense is there. It may not be on a championship level yet, but it is effective. Certainly those numbers are flawed, though. With all of the C's great defensive numbers you have to take into account that the league's shooting numbers are down greatly compared to this time last season. Teams are scoring less, players are shooting worse (save guys like LeBron, etc), and as a whole the league just has not been in shape enough to put together a fantastic product. Will that change over the course of the season? Absolutely.
However, I don't think the fact that teams will begin shooting better will change the stifling effects of the Boston defense. This team has for the most part locked in defensively. I've seen better defensive rotations from everyone, better man-to-man defense from everyone, and even KG has been playing pretty great defense -- something that is obviously not unexpected from a guy has been on the NBA All-Defensive First Team a total of nine times. The Celtics are also holding teams to a league best (as in, the lowest percentage in the entire league) 28% from beyond the three-point arc. This is greatly better than the league average of 34.3%. the C's perimeter defense hasn't been lacking by any means over the course of the past three years, but to put it into perspective: the C's held opponents to 34% (2nd in the NBA) from long distance last year, 34.2% in 2009-10, and 34.9% during the 2008-2009 season. Yes, again, the numbers are probably skewed because teams aren't shooting as well this season, but if anything close to this pace continues in terms of perimeter defense then Boston will greatly augment their success as the season continues.
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