2006 Draft - Rajon Rondo vs Marcus Williams

[mainevent3405]

I recall during the 2006 draft many posters were not happy with the selection of RR over Marcus Williams, especially after Williams started getting playing time early and played OK while RR sat on Doc's bench most of the season, until the last quarter of the season when DW was hurt and Telfair was just plain terrible.
Williams now: http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wireta ... _williams/
Rondo now: http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball ... mpliments/

I'd say we made the correct pick!

[wigglestrue]

I was never high on Williams. I remember being higher on Sergio Rodriguez than Rondo, but that was because my only exposure to Rondo was a cruddy YouTube clip that basically only showed him dunking and travelling. That said, I wasn't unhappy when they drafted Rondo, and he's since become my favorite player in the NBA. Sergio, meanwhile, is the master of getting 7 assists in 15 minutes, etc, lol.

[Rocky5000]

I think you're being a little unfair to Williams, he played behind J Kidd, rather than Telfair for the first two years of his career, so it was difficult for him to get many minutes. Then they brought in Harris, who is younger than Kidd and plays even more minutes. Now he's been shipped to GS where Don Nelson won't play him because he can't run as fast as CJ Watson and isn't as athletic as guys like Stephen Jackson, Azubuike, Crawford, and Morrow. Al Harrington got benched in GS, but look at what he's done in NY.

[Truthiracy]

I brought this up in another topic ^_^

[wetsthebed]

I'd like to note that I was bigtime Rondo>Williams before the draft...

I think I even compared Marcus Williams to Dan Dickau. And their career stats are actually pretty close... Both average about 6 and 3.

[wigglestrue]

I was never high on Williams. I remember being higher on Sergio Rodriguez than Rondo, but that was because my only exposure to Rondo was a cruddy YouTube clip that basically only showed him dunking and travelling. That said, I wasn't unhappy when they drafted Rondo, and he's since become my favorite player in the NBA. Sergio, meanwhile, is the master of getting 7 assists in 15 minutes, etc, lol.

Check that, Rondo with 7 in 11 minutes tonight, lol.

[sprash9802]

Lol... I remember Dick Vitale on draft night RIPPING Ainge AND Rondo... He said Rondo will NEVER be even an ok shooter and was singing the praises of Williams.. Speaking of which, barring the Harris trade, Thorn's past few moves and his draft picks have all been busts... Planinic(who Nets fans claimed was the next best thing when he was drafted), Williams (Shawn and Marcus), Antoine Wright, Kristic, Illic, Graham... mostly busts, except Kristic... The Carter trade got them nowhere, Yi and Simmons are mediocre and they STILL do not have a frontcourt.

[phoolishly_insane]

you have to remember that we had rondo through trade. so really, it was the Suns pick.

[DelMonte West]

I was a Rondo backer back then, with the only glaring problem being his FT% at the time.

I think looking at the next year's draft, when we were looking at the likes of Corey Brewer vs. Joakim Noah as a cornerstone of our team, is a much bigger turd in hindsight.

[chakdaddy]

Marcus William's upside was always to be an all-around decent but not special player. Ridiculous to take a guy like that in the lottery.

[threrf23]

I wonder if we could swap JR Giddens for Marcus Williams?

[LongTimeFan]

That's funny. It is clear to me that DA can see a player's defensive capability far better than most GMs or fans can see a player's future offensive capablity.

My recollection is that we had Rondo #5 on our draft board and we had the #6 pick. So to get the player we wanted, we had to trade. Most GMs would have traded up, but DA just cashed in the 6 and bought the 21 with jump change.

I think at this point we should give Walker, Giddens & DA some slack. After the Jeffersen draft, I became a true believer.

[Man_Up]

I wonder if we could swap JR Giddens for Marcus Williams?

[chakdaddy]

My recollection is that we had Rondo #5 on our draft board and we had the #6 pick. So to get the player we wanted, we had to trade. Most GMs would have traded up, but DA just cashed in the 6 and bought the 21 with jump change.

I don't think much of this is true.

Yes we had Rondo high on the draft board but he was going to be around far after that, so most GM's would have traded *down*. Instead, he traded the #6 for very little, and overpaid for the #21 (a pick that became Rudy Fernandez when the going rate for a Phoenix #1 was just cash.)

Overall, it's not a lot different than had he just taken Rondo at 6. Basically you could look at it that we shaved a year of LaFrentz's contract (turning it into Ratliff's) for Rudy Fernandez - funny that both ends involve Portland; and just took Rondo awfully high without profiting from trading down.

Again, all's well that ends well. But the only really smart thing Ainge did that day was targeting Rondo in the first place. Not that Rondo wasn't worth the #6 pick in retrospect, and not that trading the Jiri Welsch pick for him didn't wind up being a great move - but one would think we could have gotten him cheaper, and picked up some extra draft picks or something in the meantime. There's no way Ainge shouldn't have gotten a future #1 thrown in the Telfair trade, and a future #1 is a steep price to give Phoenix when they usually just accept cash.

[Rocky5000]

I thought we had number 7, but then Minnesota traded with Portland and swapped 6 for our 7.

[chakdaddy]

Actually I think a good analogy for Rondo's acquisition is this -

Buying a $1 lottery ticket for $100 but then hitting the jackpot with it.

In Ainge's defense, he probably had a very good idea that this particular lottery ticket was going to be a winner - I think he wanted Rondo bad and chose to overpay Phoenix rather than play hardball and risk losing out. In retrospect, likely a good enough decision. Espeically since Rudy or whoever we would have drafted might have just wound up in Seattle or Minnesota as a throw in.

[tlee324]

There was a strong Marcus Williams group on the board that didn't want Rondo at all. I think Rondo has pretty much silenced that group.

Although I'm sure there are folks out there that would rather have a better shooter at the point, but he's fitting very well with the team playing to his strengths, which plays to his teammates' strengths. He'll be fine.

Rondo brings defense, and I think less turnovers/wasted possessions than Williams, and I like that on my team. Williams can put up some good numbers, I'll give him that, but I don't think I'd ever give up Rondo for him at all.

[celticfan42487]

I'm not so sure there was a strong anyone click moreas a **** we're going to select Rondo/Marcus/Sergio with #7!!! Dammit which one of these can I hype up the most.

Then there were others saying that's absurd and picking some other cats.

Back then if I had to select one out of the 3 with the #7 to play for a **** team that will be **** for the next 10 years it would have been Marcus... at least he can do something offensively.

[UGA Hayes]

To be fair who knows how good he would have been if he had better character. I was always surprised how easily some people dismissed the computer incident. It wasn't just that he did it that was the red flag. It was that he was totally unrepentant the minute he got back on the cour. It didn't help that UCONN rushed to get him reinstated-great message to send a coddled athlete, that you will do anything to get him on the court- I'm sure he will really learned his lesson.

[grantlongforpresident]

I was wrong about Rondo. It is kind of weird, he was hyped out of HS and then was unimpressive (IMO) at Kentucky.

I was at UConn when Marcus Williams was there, and saw him around all the time. You could tell he just didn't give a damn about anything. That said, he has very good point guard intangibles (like Rondo, Nash, Kidd, etc) but is not a great athlete. I think my vertical is better than his.

At the time i wasn't that excited about M.Williams, but I was pretty set against Rondo. Trading the #7 for Telfair was just dumb and trading a future 1st for #21 seemed like overpaying (if we could have used $3m like portland did 3 picks later).

However it worked out. We won #17, are awesome this year, and Rondo is playing like an All Star! So i wouldn't take it back.