Is Rondo Finally the best PG in the NBA?

[MavsManiac4Life]

He's playing out of his mind this year, is he now the best PG in all of the league?

Discuss.

[therealbig3]

IMO, the best PG in the league is clearly CP3.

[GAME TIME]

Chris Paul is the best PG

Steve Nash is the best passer.

[tsherkin]

I'm not seeing it. He's right up there with anyone you'd care to name, and he's not as godawful at scoring as he's been the last two seasons, but as usual, it seems people are fascinated by raw assists, APG and so forth. Rondo takes a lesser scoring load than basically all of his peers, so raw volume isn't at all useful in this comparison.

I'd say he's playing better than Tony Parker, who's having an abysmal scoring start to the season. I'd what Conley is doing in Memphis should bear note. Likewise Jrue Holiday, Deron Williams and Goran Dragic. Damian Lilard is playing very well, himself. Are any of them better than Rondo? Right at this point of the season, one could say so. But 10 games in, anything's possible. Rondo isn't really doing anything he hasn't typically done apart from having an outlier shooting season from 10+ feet, though, so to use this sample and his high APG average as any kind of indicator is somewhat odd.

Over his first 8 games, Rondo shot 49% from 16-23 feet at 4.4 attempts per game. That's Nash-level, so it's essentially impossible that he will maintain that. Likewise, he is shooting 50% from 10-15 feet. These represent something like 12% above the average he's maintained the last 6 years. It's not likely to maintain either. It's possible that he's going to continue to show some development in his jumper, as well as the usual bounds of seasonal variance, of course, and it looks like (at least for now) his floater is back. But again, 10 games. SSS applies, especially with outlier performances like that showing up in his game. It's ALSO true that he's getting more passing support on his jumpers, so he's not likely to totally regress back to his usual levels if that keeps up, which means at least some of his improvement is likely to maintain, and that means that his current level of scoring efficiency is somewhat likely to maintain as well (-0.9% TS compared to league average).

Chris Paul is DEFINITELY playing far better than Rondo right now, however. He's producing double-digit assists, he's always been vastly superior to Rondo as a scoring threat, he's also presenting as a defensive threat, I mean that one is pretty clear.

Right now, it is unshakeably true that Rondo is playing better than Paul. Will that shake out true over the course of the season? Well, that's something else, but unless Paul regresses, I doubt it, because Rondo's too limited in his scope to be better than Paul. Rondo is playing really well, and with his usual terrible scoring efficiency rising to less mediocre levels, his overall value is increasing. Hopefully he maintains it, but what he's doing right now doesn't make him the best PG in the league.

He's ONE of the best PGs in the league, but that's been true for years. Let's see what happens at 20 and 30 games, see what his jumper is doing then and how that affects his overall performance. Let's see if Pierce keeps shooting 3s at the rate he's managing right now, etc, etc. Rondo will be among the best PGs all year, but unless something happens to Paul, he'll always be 2nd at best.

[Tabitha]

tsherk is completely right, hes capped at the 2nd best PG in the league unless something drastic happens to CP3 or himself. Amazing passer, improved scorer, incredible defender, Rondo has looked good so far. But CP3 brings everything Rondo brings (minus the great defense and rebounding) and more.

[the_fool]

Yes, he is

[-Kees-]

No he's not, but he's moved into the top 3 for sure. But I'll still take Paul over him any day,

[ahonui06]

Post padding

[CablexDeadpool]

he's been the best since 10-11

[Clyde Frazier]

Nothing's changed. Still Paul pretty easily.

[NO-KG-AI]

It's no knock to Rondo, Paul is one of the best offensive players to ever lace them up. He's sublime.

[Krodis]

When you look at this video of today's game, you can begin to see why people are skeptical of Rondo's raw assist numbers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... ViRGSJZFcE

Now, only one of them is really a badly (a few are questionable, but everyone gets questionable assists) credited assist (1:11 is a joke to get an assist on), and he did have some nice passes in there (the alley-oops are quite good), but it's hardly like Rondo created 20 good looks for his teammates. A lot of these are passes to contested jump-shooters where Rondo hardly did anything at all. A few more are very simple pick and pop plays, and a couple more are simple post-entry passes where KG had to make a move afterwards. And then there are the good alley oops on pick and rolls and a few good passes where he shows good court vision to make a pass other people might not have seen. But people see "20 assists" and think that it means something it doesn't, and I think there's good reason to be skeptical of raw assist numbers in general.


EDIT: For comparison, this is a 17 assist game Steve Nash had last year. He's more active in creating the shots and the looks created tend to be better (lots of layups near the rim):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpXLUm2wakI


Now obviously randomly picking two high assist games isn't necessarily a representative sample, but when you hear people question Rondo's value or praise say, Nash's, even as a playmaker, this kind of stuff is what they're talking about, even beyond the whole shooting thing.

[fast-break]

^Just watched the clip at 1:11 mark, can't believe that was counted as an assist.

Rondo's a great point guard but nowhere near the level of Chris Paul as a complete offensive threat.

[Rapcity_11]

I gotta agree with Krodis. The C's system is designed to have basically everything run through Rondo. Credit to him for making smart, simple passes but he creates little for teammates compared to a lot of other PG's. In a lot of ways he's a more athletic and creative Calderon.

Additionally, the Raptors were playing idiotic defense. I mean why the **** were they consistently cheating off shooters in order to shade towards Rondo? HEY BARGNANI, maybe don't triple team him at 0:34? HEY John Lucas, maybe go under every screen? Make him score for ****'s sake.

[Doctor MJ]

He's playing out of his mind this year, is he now the best PG in all of the league?

Discuss.

You talk as if we've just been waiting for something to "click" so that he'd finally reach his potential. In reality there's really no reason to expect him to surpass someone like Chris Paul.

And no, Rondo still hasn't passed Paul, and he's not close.