Rondo is capable of playing great defense and he often records brilliant, game-changing defensive plays, but he can also seem genuinely disinterested in stopping his opponent.
Rajon Rondo has the reputation of a great defender. But maybe he's not so great.Raise your hand if you've ever wondered why Rajon Rondo seems so nonchalant at times defensively. If you've ever cursed at your television screen because Rondo decided to gamble rather than play good positional defense. If you've ever seen Random NBA Point Guard X cooking against the Celtics and thought, "Man, I just wish Rondo cared tonight."
You're probably raising your hand. Rondo is capable of playing great defense and he often records brilliant, game-changing defensive plays, but he can also seem genuinely disinterested in stopping his opponent.
It's the latter tendency that lands the Boston Celtics point guard on Neil Paine's list of most overrated NBA defenders for ESPN Insider. Rondo accumulates plenty of steals and has landed on the First- or Second-Team All-Defense for each of the past four years, but Paine alleges that he's not quite as valuable without the ball as people tend to perceive him.
"Rondo's career counterpart PER of 15.6 doesn't tell the tale of an elite on-ball defender, and plus/minus data show a decline in performance within the team concept as well," writes Paine. "Over Rondo's first four NBA seasons, the Celtics were 2.2 points of defensive rating better with him on the floor, including an incredible 8.3-point difference during Rondo's rookie season of 2006-07. Since the start of the 2010-11 season, however, that number has been flipped; over the past two seasons, Boston was actually 2.1 points per 100 possessions better when Rondo wasn't in the game."
If Rondo's defense has indeed slipped, part of the reason: He's taken on larger offensive importance every season and -- especially given the amount of minutes he plays -- must conserve some of his energy to run Boston's offense. Doc Rivers recently said Rondo could be more like Avery Bradley, hounding every opponent until he trembles in fear, but the Celtics rely too much on their star point guard's offensive contributions.
That doesn't excuse Rondo's defense entirely, but it does make sense. For what it's worth, Rivers addressed Monday how he still needs to find a number of minutes Rondo can play without sacrificing his energy. Rondo's playing 41.5 minutes per game through three contests, maybe too many.
“I’m concerned but not as far as him getting tired but I don’t want him to save himself on the floor,” Rivers said after Monday's practice, according to WEEI. “There’s a minutes number for him. We don’t know what it is yet. We’ll figure it out where he can play his minutes at full pace instead of knowing he’s going to be on the floor too long and then he starts pacing himself. We need him to be a fast, quick, aggressive player.”
The rest of Paine's five-man list follows:
- Kobe Bryant
- Joakim Noah
- Arron Afflalo
- Tayshaun Prince