Its not the confidence we have, but rather just common sense. Trying anything else has to be better than to continue to believe Knight will ever be a shooting guard - and that goes triply for Stuckey. Try English and Middleton. If neither can actually shoot in the NBA for some odd reason, trade for a shooting guard. Its better to see what you got vs. just doing a trade blindly.
With Rondo, it was far more than an increase in minutes that led to his coming out. Let's normalize minutes at 36 and look at his development in the first 4 years (showing minutes also so that you can see how much opportunity he got): Year 1 (20 years old): 23.5 mpg. 25 starts. 9.9 points, 5.8 assists per 36 on .472 TS% Year 2 (21 years old): 29.9 mpg. 77 starts. 12.7 points, 6.1 assists per 36 on .515 TS% Year 3 (22 years old): 33.0 mpg. 80 starts. 13.0 points, 9.0 assists per 36 on .543 TS% * In June 2009, Dumars rejects a trade proposal from the Celts (Rondo and Ray Allen for Prince, Hamilton, and Stuckey). Woops. Year 4 (23 years old): 36.6 mpg. 81 starts. 13.5 points, 9.6 assists per 36 on .540 TS%. His playoff stats show a similar progression. He did some work in the off seasons to improve some of his weaknesses. Rajon Rondo: Elite Finisher? | Boston Celtics Basketball - Celtics news, rumors and analysis - CelticsHub.com I haven't really dived in enough to make a determination on whether he was "groomed" or just figured it out himself over time, but I think that it is obvious that he went through some overall development in his first 3-4 years in the league. It looks like his playing time followed his improvement rather than the other way around since his per minute stats improved each year. He probably was groomed in a similar way that Drummond is being groomed... that is slowly introduced until he showed that he could handle more minutes while the player got stronger, learned more, and built a better feel for the game. The thing about Rondo though is that he never really had any down years where he backtracked. Each year was better than the last until he got to an elite level.
By groomed I imagine people picturing some veteran PG teaching the young'n the ins and outs of the position please shoe the vet on the Boston roster that would have been responsible for the 'grooming' of Rondo 2006-07 Boston Celtics Roster and Stats | Basketball-Reference.com
Celtics' Rondo learns well from his mentor, the Hawks' Bibby - The Boston Globe Sam Cassell and Eddie House on the team with him as well. Seems like a guy that had a lot of mentoring over the years and had an organization that was both patient with him and also willing to give him an enormous amount of responsibility before it was obvious that he could handle it.
That's not "grooming" that's COACHING! And for every player that guy Coached up, he ruined 3 or four. My point is that I have never heard of an example of some veteran player taking a guy under his wing and teaching him the actual game. Brandon sucks as a pg-PERIOD and there is no "grooming" to be done.
Chauncey has done that to a bunch of guys. And it happens all the time. Chris Paul & Eric Bledsoe is a good example
For the record, Chauncey credits much of his success as an NBA PG to being taken under Brandon's wing in Minny.
Really? Seriously? I'm done.......clearly I'm wrong. I say spend all our cap space on a HUGE contract for Chauncey, 1 yr $20M, so he can "groom" Brandon Knight into the next Chris Paul.
