LOSER: Point Guards Who Can’t Shoot
They might be the trickiest players to build around — one-man saboteurs of otherwise-functional NBA offenses. It’s just hard to gain traction on a pick-and-roll when the guy guarding the ball handler can go under every screen — even below the foul line:
If anything, Chicago isn’t going under enough screens on MCW pick-and-rolls in this series, and the Bucks exploited that repeatedly in Monday’s huge road win. The Bucks knew there would be growing pains transitioning from Brandon Knight to Michael Carter-Williams, but they didn’t think it would be this bad. Carter-Williams is shooting 44.4 percent in the playoffs, thanks to Monday’s monster Game 5 performance in Chicago that stands, for now, as a happy outlier. Defenses stuff the paint when the Bucks play Carter-Williams, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and one traditional big man — even with shooters at the other two positions.
Carter-Williams isn’t a good enough passer or defender yet to make up for his bricky shooting. Rajon Rondo used to be, and the Celtics still needed three of the greatest shooters ever at their positions to build a functional offense around him. As those stars declined, Boston’s offense fell with them. A healthy Rondo proved unable to prop up a league-average offense without Hall of Fame–level support.
Rondo in recovery has been unable to do much of anything. He’s somehow become a worse shooter, and while he deigned to try on defense again in Dallas, he hasn’t been as good as his reputation on that end in nearly a half-decade.
The Mavericks tried to maximize his skills. They allowed him to run
a lot of side pick-and-rolls with Tyson Chandler, and to take those plays along the baseline — exactly where the defense would direct him:
Meandering where the defense wants you isn’t ideal, but it at least allowed Rondo to get deep into the paint and fire weirdly angled passes all over the floor — to be Rondo. Dallas also called more set plays after Rondo arrived; Rondo didn’t like having things scripted, but Rick Carlisle felt he had to slot the chess pieces in certain places to limit the damage of Rondo’s horrible shooting.
It failed in
entirely predictable ways. The offense fell apart, and Rondo’s impact on defense faded after a promising start. It has been jarring to watch Dallas rediscover its early-season identity in his absence — pushing the pace, running unpredictable series of pick-and-rolls all over the floor, and producing a bundle of Chandler dunks:
The Mavs are like your friend who dated a crazy significant other for a few months. The relationship turned them into an unrecognizable weirdo, and when it ended, they reverted back to form like nothing ever happened — like we all just imagined everything. One difference: The Mavs traded two good players and a first-round pick to get a first date.
Get out of here, by the way, with the noise about how the Rondo deal was a risk-free flier for Dallas. Jae Crowder and Brandan Wright are good players; Wright might be an even better pick-and-roll dunker than Chandler, and Dallas didn’t have to change a thing when he came into the game. Amar’e Stoudemire has done well for Dallas, but he’s more of a post-up guy now, and he’s a huge defensive downgrade from Wright.
Some fans love to say the first-round pick doesn’t matter, since the Mavs always blow them or trade them, but that’s exactly the point: They used one bullet in a trade that didn’t work, and they can’t replace it. Trading for Rondo was a calculated risk. It wasn’t risk-free.
For now, the Mavericks have found something in the J.J. Barea–Monta Ellis–Al-Farouq Aminu–Dirk Nowitzki-Chandler lineup — a group that features both a long-armed defender for James Harden and a point guard who can shoot well enough to keep defenses honest.
2 Aminu’s not a good shooter, but he has a partial track record of hitting corner 3s, and he’s happy to stand on the strong side during spread pick-and-rolls — a place from which defenders rarely help:
Dallas tried to put Rondo there, but he’s an even worse shooter than Aminu, and he likes to stray closer to the paint.
The Mavs hit on this lineup a few games too late, and without Chandler Parsons, they likely don’t have the horses to win this series anyway.
Rondo’s future in the league is unclear. He has long wanted a max-level contract, and that’s obviously not happening. No team that has watched him since his ACL tear would get into a bidding war for Rondo. Several teams that once needed point guards — Detroit, Miami, arguably Milwaukee — found their guy at the trade deadline. The Knicks run the triangle. The Lakers may not be competing against anyone but themselves, and they should proceed accordingly.
Rondo’s a skilled player, and health has robbed him of some of what he once was. But the league has also evolved since Rondo’s peak. Teams are more attuned to spacing — on both ends. They are more aggressive in simply abandoning bad shooters than they were in 2009 and 2010. It is harder today for Rondo, and for Carter-Williams, than it was five years ago. Speaking of which …
