While he'll be wearing a different uniform when his Sacramento Kings face the Boston Celtics on Thursday in Mexico City, Rajon Rondo is back in a familiar spot from his Boston days: atop the league's assist leaderboard.
In his first season with the Kings after an unhappy, disappointing partial campaign with the Dallas Mavericks, Rondo's averages of 12.9 points, 10.7 assists and 7.1 rebounds per game look a lot like his numbers during his eight-plus years wearing Celtics green. Add in his league-leading four triple-doubles and it seems fair to ask: Is Boston Rondo back?
Well, yes and no. Let's explore both arguments.
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Yes: Rondo's playmaking and rebounding are elite
The case for Rondo's return comes from his unique stat line, particularly in the rebounding and assist categories.
Passing has always been Rondo's best skill, and he's been as good as ever in Sacramento. The 10.8 assists he's handing out per 36 minutes would match his second-best single-season mark with the Celtics, trailing only his 11.4 assists per 36 minutes he posted during the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign.
While assists are a relatively crude measure of playmaking prowess, Rondo performs well in more advanced metrics. Nylon Calculus tracks the efficiency of scorers on potentially assisted shots, and the 64.2 percent effective field-goal percentage (eFG, which accounts for the added value of 3s by treating them as 1.5 field goals) teammates are shooting when Rondo sets them up ranks fourth among point guards who have averaged at least 25 minutes per game.
Zooming in on Rondo in particular, we can use SportVU passing data available on NBA.com/Stats to compare how Kings players shoot off Rondo passes as compared to passes from other teammates. (Because this includes all passes, not just assists, the percentages are slightly different.)
On average, Sacramento players have an excellent .562 eFG on Rondo passes. Weighting their shooting percentage on other passes by the same number of attempts, they shoot at .450 eFG otherwise.
Here's how that breaks down for players who have taken at least 15 shots following Rondo's passes.
The Kings probably will shoot better on other passes the rest of the season, having posted a .487 percent eFG on shots off passes last season. Taken together, these stats suggest that Rondo's passing alone is creating an extra four or five points per game for Sacramento.
Rondo isn't just rebounding as well as he has in the past; he actually has been better. Rondo is pulling down a career-high 10.8 percent of all available rebounds, making him better than the average small forward, let alone point guards (who average a 6.3 rebound percentage). At 6-foot-1, Rondo is outrebounding 7-foot-1 Portland Trail Blazers forward-center Meyers Leonard (10.2 rebound percentage).
No: Rondo is subpar as a scorer and defender
Despite his impressive passing and rebounding, Rondo still doesn't rate as well by all-in-one metrics as he did during his heyday. He's averaging .075 win shares per 48 minutes, which would be worse by a wide margin than his weakest performance during his peak Boston years, which ran from his second season (the championship campaign of 2007-08) to his seventh (2012-13, when he posted .108 win shares per 48 minutes before his ACL injury in January 2013).
The key differences are in Rondo's scoring and defense.
While Rondo's 12.9 points per game would rank third in his career, that's mostly because of his heavy minutes total (35.7 per game) and the Kings' fast pace. On a per-possession basis, Rondo is scoring precisely at his career average (17.4 points per 100 possessions), with a true shooting percentage worse than any season between 2007-08 and 2012-13 -- despite making a career-best 35.4 percent of his 3-point attempts.
Rondo's free throw woes have been particularly vexing. A 62.1 percent foul shooter through 2013-14, Rondo has made just 40.5 percent of his free throw attempts over the past two seasons -- worse than DeAndre Jordan's career mark at the line (41.4 percent). It's gotten so bad that on Monday, Rondo's former Dallas coach Rick Carlisle used the Hack-A-Shaq strategy against him, and Rondo went 7-of-14 to improve his percentage.
Intentional fouls aren't the problem. Rather, Rondo's desire to avoid contact around the basket has severely limited his scoring ability. As recently as 2011-12, 45.6 percent of Rondo's shots came within three feet of the hoop, according to Basketball-Reference.com. With his change in style of play, perhaps exacerbated by his declining athleticism after the ACL tear, that's down to a career-low 27.5 percent this season.
The other major statistical decline in Rondo's game is his steal rate. He led the league in steal percentage twice, in 2006-07 and 2009-10, and posted at least three steals per 100 plays in each of his first five seasons. That's down to 2.3 the past two years, barely better than average for a point guard.
An all-defensive pick four times in his prime, Rondo has slipped from that level. When he was traded to the Mavericks, Rondo admitted his defensive effort was inconsistent. That appears to remain the case, and Sacramento is allowing 1.6 more points per 100 possessions with him on the court, according to NBA.com/Stats.
Verdict: Rondo's better, but not back at his peak
Even if not for his ACL injury and the baggage he accumulated in Boston and Dallas, Rondo would be on the back side of his career as he nears age 30. So there's no shame in his not quite living up to the high standard he set during his peak years with the Celtics.
Rondo remains a useful starter, something that was in question after his disastrous time with the Mavericks. In that sense, the Kings have been proved right after they made the questionable decision to sign Rondo last summer.
But all too soon, the problem for the Kings will be the one-year contract they gave Rondo without insisting on a team option. Now Rondo will become a free agent again in 2016. Sacramento will likely have to give Rondo a huge raise to keep him and probably a lot more than he's worth, given that his counting stats and triple-doubles overstate his production.
So, for the Kings to get real value from Rondo, they need to make the playoffs this season. That's certainly possible based on how they've played with DeMarcus Cousins healthy. Sacramento is 6-4 in the 10 games when Cousins has played at least 20 minutes, and that pace going forward would probably be good enough for a playoff spot in a down year for the Western Conference.
Reaching the postseason would put Rondo back in another familiar spot and allow their point guard to revive his other persona, Playoff Rondo, made famous during his amazing postseason performance in 2011-12 versus the Miami Heat.
And that would indeed make Rondo a worthwhile signing for a Kings franchise longing for a return to relevance after a lost decade since their last playoff game.