John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky and graduate of UK, he covered UK football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. He lives in Lexington with his wife and two sons.
Rethinking Rondo
Driving around this morning, heard Rick Carlisle, the new Dallas Mavericks' coach, on Mike & Mike say he had predicted all along that Detroit would come out of the NBA's Eastern Conference.
He said he thought the experience of the Pistons Big Four of Billups-Prince-Hamilton-Wallace would trump the Celtics Big Three of Garnett-Pierce-Allen.
He said he had thought Billups vs. Rondo was a better matchup for Detroit than Boston. But, since the playoffs have progressed, he sounded like he wasn't so sure. He said Rondo had really "stepped up" this year and that if it did come down to Boston vs. Detroit it would be a great series.
That leads me to two things.
No. 1 is this Tom Curran piece on MSNBC Sports urging Boston coach Doc Rivers to just hand the keys to Rondo and get out of the way. Now who would have thought that before this season? You can argue that Rajon is helped tremendously by the tremendous talent around him. But still, Rondo has done a very effective job of running the show.
No. 2 is this: My boss pays much more attention to the NBA than myself. (A good portion of America probably does, as well.) During Rajon's two years at UK, he argued that Rondo would be a better pro than a college player. I would debate right back -- that's what we do -- that Rondo needed to find a respectable perimeter shot to make any sort of dent on the next level. My boss said he didn't think that was so. He pointed to Tony Parker, and the fact that Eva Longoria's better half scores more points in the paint in the NBA than any other player. I thought he was nuts.
This one time (just kidding), I think the boss may have been right.
After the draft, GM Jerry West was quoted as saying that if Rondo had had any shooting ability, he'd have been a high lottery pick. He is an athletic freak, maybe the fastest guy in the NBA. He has added some jumper to his repetoire, and needs to hit them consistently if he wants a ring this year.
Posted by:JTapp | May 15, 2008 at 02:20 PM
This is all well and good, except that Rondo was hitting perimeter shots last night - and probably more importantly, his shooting motion resembled that of a professional basketball player, not whatever you call it when he played for UK.
Rondo is certainly a better pro than a college player no doubt, but that is because his perimeter shot improved, not in spite of it.
Posted by:Trent McBride | May 15, 2008 at 02:53 PM