Oh, how the mighty have fallen. In the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals, Rajon Rondo averaged 20.9 points, 11.3 assists and 6.9 rebounds against the juggernaut Miami Heat, pushing the eventual champions to an epic seven-game series. The legend of "Playoff Rondo" burned bright.
Fast forward three years later, and the legend of Playoff Rondo feels more like a myth. In the 2015 playoffs, Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle sent Rondo home in the middle of a series against the Houston Rockets, mercifully ending a disastrous season for Rondo. Playoff Rondo now means something totally different.
The outlook for Rondo looks even dimmer, according to our ESPN Forecast results. When asked which newcomer will have the most disappointing impact in 2015-16, the ESPN panel overwhelmingly chose the enigmatic Rondo, who joins the equally enigmatic Sacramento Kings on a one-year deal.
It's a curious choice because of that operative word -- disappointing -- which assumes expectations are high for a guy who almost single-handedly neutered the Mavericks' high-powered offense and basically got fired on the NBA's biggest stage. But then again, the Kings have their own hopes up, shelling out $10 million for his services -- almost twice the annual salary of free-agent point guards Patrick Beverley, C.J. Watson and Jameer Nelson.
Keep your expectations low. Statistically, Rondo has made his teams worse for about three seasons running. The isn't a one-season blip. It's more likely that the league has passed Rondo by. Not only has the league changed, but so has Rondo.
The anti-Moreyballer
It's fitting Rondo was deemed unplayable against the Houston Rockets, a team hell-bent on doing the things that Rondo cannot or will not do on a basketball court. Following the statistically charged ethos of general manager Daryl Morey, the Rockets ranked first in 3-point rate, second in free-throw rate and sixth in percentage of shots at the rim. Threes, freebies and bunnies -- that's what MoreyBall does.
And that's the antithesis of RondoBall. The 29-year-old averaged just 1.3 3-point attempts last season, made just 31 of his 78 free throws and took just 30 percent of his field goal attempts inside 3 feet, according to Basketball-Reference.com. Not good for any player, much less a starter on a playoff team.
Rondo was oddly allergic to the MoreyBall diet. In fact, if you totaled Rondo's 3-point field goals, free throws and at-the-rim field goals, and then scaled that sum to a per-36 minute basis, you'll find that no qualified player was worse in the MoreyBall department than Rondo. He registered 3.3 such shots every 36 minutes -- lower than the 107 players who played more than 2,000 minutes last season. By comparison, Sacramento point guard Darren Collison more than doubled Rondo's MoreyBall rate last season (6.9).
Those trio of numbers don't mean everything, but it is worth noting that two of the three best point guards in the category are Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook. And the other point guard? His name is Isaiah Thomas, the guy the Kings dumped last summer and helped punch a playoff ticket for Boston last season in Rondo's place. Ouch.
Rondo's 4-on-5 effect
Rondo's scoring weaknesses have had a corrosive impact on the floor. Sure, those individual numbers don't look good, but it's just as bad on the team level. Defenses have sagged off of Rondo for years, but the "disrespect" level reached a nadir in 2014-15 when he became a non-threat to score in just about every area on the floor.
We can quantify this phenomenon. Last season, we introduced the "respect rating" at ESPN Insider, which measures a player's gravitational pull, using fancy SportVU player-tracking metrics from STATS LLC called gravity score and distraction score. Blending those two metrics systematically measures how much attention a player derives on and off the ball, I came up with a respect rating that seeks to answer the question: Who keeps the defense honest? Names like Kyle Korver, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson topped the list.
One name you won't find near the top: Rondo. He registered the worst gravitational pull among 63 qualifying point guards. His respect rating checked in at a measly 42.6.
It's no surprise Elfrid Payton, who's often compared to Rondo, checks in at a low rate, as well. But it is interesting three other Sacramento point guards found themselves on the most disrespected list. McCallum, Sessions (later traded) and Collison carried some of the weakest gravitational pulls in the NBA, and the Kings just acquired the guy defenders help off the most.
In a league that puts a premium on spacing, Rondo's reputation precedes him. Defenses are more sophisticated and smarter than ever. Last season, they packed the paint and basically ignored him when he got off the ball. Essentially, it became four-against-five, even though he racked up assists at a high rate. Rondo still tallies an impressive number of dimes, but it still hasn't made his offenses better with him at the helm.
Empty assists
Here's the big Rondo contradiction: How can a leading assist man possibly hurt an offense? Assists have long been correlated with sound basketball, but it can be misleading.
Rondo's overall impact on an offense continues to wilt even though his assist numbers remain strong. Last season, Rondo finished fourth in assist per possession. And yet, his Dallas offense was 4.6 points worse per 100 possessions with Rondo on the floor, according to NBA.com. In Boston last season before he was dealt, similar story: The Celtics were 2.1 points worse per 100 possessions with him running point than when he was on the bench.
Here are the last three seasons of on/off court ratings for Rondo's teams when he was on the floor compared to when he was on the bench. (Note: ORtg is how many points a team scores per 100 possessions and DRtg is how many points a team allows per 100 possessions while Net refers to the scoring margin on a per 100 possession basis.)
As you can see, at every stop over the last three seasons Rondo has seen his team's offense get more rotten while he's on the floor (as indicated by the negative sign in the ORtgDiff column). Dallas' defense got better (allowed fewer points) with him on the floor, but overall the defensive trend hasn't been promising. Bottom line, Rondo's impact has been decidedly in the negative each of the last three seasons.
And this isn't even considering the pre-Rondo numbers for Dallas. Those off-court numbers are strictly during the times he was with the team. Before Rondo arrived, the Lob City Mavericks owned the second-best point differential in the NBA, behind the eventual champion Golden State Warriors.
While it is true Rondo racks up a ton of assists, those occur on just 10 possessions on a given night. On the other 60 or so possessions Rondo is on the floor, the defense knows what he wants to do -- get rid of the ball -- and they're using it against him. With DeMarcus Cousins and Kosta Koufos manning the paint, the Kings needed someone to decongest the floor and keep the defense honest. Rondo hasn't been able to do that in years. Certainly not since he tore his ACL in early 2013.
The hope is Rondo will raise his game because he's on a one-year deal. The flipside of that: Last season was a contract year, and things probably couldn't get worse. As sad as it sounds, our ESPN Forecast says the worst is yet to come. This season, the Kings will find out if Rondo is indeed an NBA dinosaur.