Robb: Rajon Rondo Working To Change Ball Domination Reputation
BOSTON (CBS) – Ball domination has always been a staple of Rajon Rondo's offensive game and that's for good reason. The point guard has great handle, is a tremendous passer and grew up in the NBA setting up three future Hall-of-Famers for easy looks. Rondo played traffic cop among Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce during the Big Three era, performing his job admirably within Doc Rivers' system.
In the early stages of this decade, as we saw the slow decline of Rondo's running mates, Boston's offense began to take a nosedive as well. The open looks weren't quite as open anymore, and didn't bode well in a Boston offense that relied on precision passing and plenty of ball domination from Rondo. With players failing to get open as much, Rondo was left to improvise on his own a lot late during the shot clock and that led to ugly Boston offense for a couple seasons prior to his ACL tear January 2013.
Rondo's reputation for his constant ball control within the Celtics offense led to a lot of criticism from Rondo from the masses over the last couple years. Ball dominance and a questionable outside shot can lead to spacing issues for any NBA offense and many wondered how effective of a player he was without a cast of All-Stars surrounding him to setup.
The tide may be turning in that department though this year, as Rondo appears ready to shed that label. After debuting Wednesday night with a stellar 13 points, 12 assist and seven rebound effort in Boston's blowout win, the Celtics' captain talked about how he was inspired by another talented guard to adjust his game this offseason.
"Seeing Tony Parker run in the Finals last year [motivated me]," Rondo said. "He moved very well without the ball. He's usually a guy that dominates the ball like myself. In the Finals he got off the ball a lot and never stopped moving. A guy at that age, who is able to move with the young guys, it says a lot.
"I don't want to watch a lot of basketball, but seeing him, he's a great pick-and-roll player, he can dominate the ball, but in the Finals in particular he passed and he cut through, and got the ball in the weak side with a live dribble. He knocked down his corner 3's. I have a lot of respect for a guy like Tony Parker."
Parker's influence on Rondo could be seen in many parts of Boston's win over Brooklyn on Wednesday night. The guard dished out his usual number of assists, but spent more time without the ball in his hands. At practice Thursday, Brad Stevens spoke about the impact of Rondo being more willing to play off the ball.
"First of all, Rajon's an accomplished guy," Stevens declared. "So the last thing that I want to do, or that's fair to him, would be to try to compare him to someone else. Right? The only thing I would say is that he's a guy that studies the game, and he's a guy that sees what's successful for both him and other people. And he wants to try to figure out how he can be the most successful he can be.
"Our emphasis is on, obviously, moving the basketball. And we really feel like, and I think he feels like, the more that he moves it early and gets it back with a live dribble, the better that he is. And we saw that a couple of times [against Brooklyn]."
While Stevens likes what he sees in that department from Rondo, he made sure to point out that his play with the ball on the pick-and-roll did plenty of damage for Boston's offense as well.
"[Rondo] was also great going of the high pick-and-roll without any ball movement prior to that. So we'll just balance that and we'll weigh that. He didn't have the ball very long when you looked at his total number of minutes that he had the ball last night, but he used a lot of percentage of possessions because he's an active guy that we want to get the ball back to."
It's still very early, but if the Celtics can find the proper balance for Rondo's play on and off the ball within the offense, the team's offensive production should continue to improve from last year's lackluster output.
Brian Robb covers the Celtics for CBS Boston and contributes to NBA.com, among other media outlets. You can follow him on Twitter @CelticsHub.
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