re: Rondo and pels agree to one year deal

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It makes sense when you consider they want to avoid both being hard capped and not paying the tax. You figure the Pels had to at least match money with Golden State and offer the taxpayer MLE amount. Once you've done that you don't have a way to get Frank Jackson on a 3 year deal that doesn't hard cap you.

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If they stretched AA and used a 2nd or cash to dump Q-Pon or just stretched Asik, they should have had space to match Young and sign Frank Jackson. Even if Dell was working on another deal, it just seems crazy to let Young go for so little considering the need for shooting.

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I also don't see any reason to stretch Ajinca and have him on our books for the next 5 years even at just $2 million per year. Unlike Asik, he can be part of a reasonable roster build around AD/DC. He's also easy enough to digest outgoing salary in a trade.

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Just saying there were several options to avoid hard cap including stretching or dumping playwers or even S&T Q-Pon with Lakers. Seems like if Dell really pulled the Nick Young offer, he did so because he mistakenly thought he could get a trade done for a player he preferred. Now we don't have that player or Young.

Has it come out yet how much were paying Rondo?

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how will our front court translate in playoff basketball?

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Jrue and Rondo are legit perimeter defenders

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that helps, obviously, but teams will pick on Cousins. maybe he holds up, maybe he doesnt. his effort+focus will be tested.

on offense, teams will be much more willing to flat out ignore non-shooters to frustrate Davis/Cousins. they will have to be disciplined, keep moving, and not devolve into 1 v 1 or 2 man game w/ everyone else ball watching.

it will be hard to get into the paint w/ the sagging you will see off of Hill and Rondo.



bottom line, we will have to see how these things play out. it's great and all to say "this is the formula to beat GS" (which ) but we have no idea how Cousins will hold up v small ball lineups in the playoffs. we have no idea if the Pels can create enough offense in general, let alone enough to force teams to have to play big to slow them down. i hope we get to see the answers

you are right. if Cousins gets into the paint/post, he's a load.

in the playoffs, teams design their scheme to take away your best options. they will gameplan to avoid being put in those spots w/ Cousins. being able to leave much of the Pels roster alone on the perimeter makes that job easier. so the question for the Pels will be, can they get Cousins into good places and then make the entry pass to him?

If Jrue/Grits/solo can provide any modicum of outside scoring, it's gonna be fun to watch.

MM had a bunch of thoughts on rondo:

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Pelicans Podcaster @SilverAndMac

Watched a lot of Rondo film from last year and I have one positive, unexpected takeaway.

Yes, his defender ignores him when he is off ball

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But...Rondo keeps moving when his defender is ignoring him. Never just stands there. Then, gets the ball and makes D pay one way or another

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So, Rondo on the court might initially decrease space for Boogie and AD. But if people cut and the ball moves (Fitch), he will be a plus

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Pelicans Podcaster @SilverAndMac

Rondo moves to open spots better than any perimeter player we have had since Peja. He is smart enough to figure out how to cut the defense

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Long story short: I still don't know if it will work. But I do know that those just looking g at things like 3pt% are lazy. Other factors.

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It wasn't a bad offense by any means but I'm not sure what y'all are expecting, but cutting and movement isn't really a staple of his offense.

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It was in Denver. He had to deal with Dwight and Harden in Hou.

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JCF: To that end, I think there are still a lot of misconceptions surrounding how the offense works and is supposed to run. Last year, for example, some criticized the late-game offense because it had a tendency to get too iso-heavy and used that as an indictment of what happens when you don’t have an encyclopedic playbook to draw from when the game slows down as it so often does late in games or in the playoffs.

CF: I would counter this by saying that our late-game situation was the antithesis of our offense; it wasn’t a byproduct of our offense. We actually abandoned our offense too much to go to late-game isolation situations and you see what happens when you have players in isolation or in simple NBA sets where the defenses, which are at heightened intensity at that point in time, are locked-in on game plan and taking away what you do best: they’re forcing your best players into hard shots and then when you have other players who aren’t able to create their own offense the way a James Harden can, it becomes even tougher. So the key for us this season is staying with that fluidity later, keeping that unpredictability as well as mixing in sets that emphasize Dwight’s touches, James’ touches, and whoever else has it going that we feel has a mismatch or is playing well in that game.

James [Harden] has the same creativity and capability and strength – he’s so strong and quick. We need to run some more counter action and stuff like that.

I think also that he’s so good at passing we can use him as a catalyst to create shots for other people. Chandler [Parsons] has made a ton of big shots for us in the fourth quarter and if we can get James to collapse the defense and create the ball movement that we like then all of a sudden everybody out there is a threat to make a shot – that is the very nature of our offense: unpredictability and unselfishness.

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Rondo 3.3 millions per Shams

I just Shams'ed both of you Woj baws