Logo
The Ticker
14 hours ago

Jason Terry’s 2012-13 Final Grade

  Acquiring any player, whether it’s via trade, free agency, or the draft, comes with an air of uncertainty. The NBA has no guaranteed covenant and all sales are final, no matter how talented, proven, or productive the player may have been in year’s past. But these memories—especially recent ones—often clouds the judgment of a [...]

3
9 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

19
10 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
11 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

94
11 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
15 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

44
Browse Archives by:

Welcome to the Elite, Rajon

As CelticsBlog points out, anonymously sourced rumors have emerged claiming various players have made the All-Star teams. Among the rumored players are two Grizzlies (guess which ones?) and our very own Rajon Rondo.

As an aside, this sort of news reporting always makes me laugh, even though every media outlet (including the one I work for in my real job) is guilty of it: “Look, we’ve got anonymous sources saying stuff that will all be publicly announced—and thus accurately announced—in a few hours!” Really? We all just can’t wait for the teams to actually be announced before we start discussing them?

In any case, Rajon’s inclusion on the All-Star roster should be such an obvious no-brainer that it’s barely worth discussing. He has the 2nd-highest PER among all Eastern Conference guards (trailing only Dwyane Wade), and he has, by almost any measure, been the Celtics best player this season. I was going to write a “who’s the first half MVP?” post a few days ago, but I passed, since there is no debate. He has the highest PER on the team (edging out KG), he’s missed only one game and he has passed KG in David Berri’s wins produced stat. (As an aside, Berri published wins produced numbers for every player in the league this week. You should check them out).

I generally don’t get too riled up about All-Star snubs on the edges of the roster, because you can’t really get worked up about a system that allows Allen Iverson to start for the Eastern Conference this season. Throw one undeserving player into the starting line-up, and you’ve got 11 spots for a bunch of great players. Snubs happen. Along those lines, I won’t post something furious if Paul Pierce doesn’t make the team, and Denver and  Utah fans shouldn’t be shocked if Chauncey Billups and Carlos Boozer/Deron Williams get left off.

But Rondo? He’s in. And if he’s not, my neighbors can expect some shouting.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>