FanPost

Canis Hoopers are So Smart. So Why are You So Wrong About Ricky Rubio?

Disclaimer: Blazer Fan here who often comes over for a Cup of Canis after reading BlazersEdge. I enjoy CH because of the passion and volume of the readers.

The Canis Hoopus readers are very astute. You combine the skepticism that comes with incompetent management and a decade of futility with the desperate hope that success is just around the corner. Among the things Wolves fans rationally tend to believe or want to believe:

  1. That the Owner can somehow turn things around before the team becomes the Seattle Timberwolves

  2. Hated the Kahn malpractice era (Quick: Which is the bigger screw-up: The triple PG draft of 2009 or the "we won’t give you 5 years, but you can opt out after 3" K-Love contract?)

  3. Hope that Flip is a "real basketball" man who can turn things around.

  4. See Pek as a solid core of the future (the proverbial Big Man of the Future)

  5. Suspect Shabazz is a bust in the happening: In the era of the point forward, his only hope is to become a "power" guard

  6. Like Dieng and have cautious hope about Levine.

I understand each of these things, even if I don’t always agree. But here is the one thing that CHers universally agree on (and many national experts do as well) that I can’t comprehend:

When Kevin Love leaves, the Timberwolves will rebuild around Nikola Pekovic (OK), Andrew Wiggins (hopefully) and Ricky Rubio (??????).

Why is there the zombie-like lock-step acceptance of Rubio as a cornerstone for this franchise?

History: As a Blazer fan, I know the pain of trying to find to find a point guard. We even welcomed Raymond Felton (until cupcakes and dribbling off his foot in crunch time ended the honeymoon)! So I understand the excitement about the mysterious Spanish guard when he finally came to the NBA.

Rookie Year = Wolves fans loved him. Thru League Pass, NBA fans loved him. Taking K-Love outlet passes and leading the fast break, going into the lane and threading pinpoint bounce passes, everyone loved Ricky. Even a serious injury couldn’t slow the hype. Yes his shooting numbers were poor, but he was new to the league:

Pts 10.6 .357 FG% .340 3Pt% 8.2 Assists

Sophomore Year – Recovering from his knee injury, all could be forgiven. Love’s "knuckle push-up" injury wrecked the season. Everyone still loves Ricky, although those shooting numbers stay low:

Pts 10.7 .360 FG% .293 3Pt% 7.3 Assists

2013-14 – Last Year was the perfect storm. Ricky was healthy. Love was healthy. Pekovic was mostly healthy. Many pundits predicted the Wolves as the surprise team to sneak into the play-offs, ending the long drought. Wolves: 40-42 9 Games out of the Play-Offs. Ricky’s numbers in this breakthrough year:

Pts 9.5 .381 FG% .331 3Pt% 8.6 Assists

How Good is Ricky Rubio?

The Good: Rubio can run an NBA team. He is a good ball-handler, very good passer, and can get a team into an offense. Despite his slight frame he is a decent defender. Ricky was 4th in the NBA in assists and 2nd in steals. He clearly has a high basketball IQ. He gives you almost everything you want in a franchise point guard EXCEPT…

Ricky Rubio does not score and can’t shoot! Sometimes your eyes tell you one thing and the numbers tell you something else entirely. But not here. Watching Ricky in the half-court, his hesitancy to shoot the ball grabs your attention. But he could be a "pass first" PG who could shoot if he needed too, right?

The numbers say NO! One important factor is that Ricky has been given the chance to show his stuff in his short career. Like Damien Lillard with the Blazers, Rubio was given the keys to the offense from the beginning. He has started 160 of his 180 NBA games. He has been given every chance to explore and grow his game. By this last season we should be seeing much of what Ricky will offer as an NBA player. When you set him among his peers, the numbers are alarming:

2013-14 Scoring: Rubio’s 9.5 ppg tied for 34th in the NBA among point guards with the disappointing Jarrett Jack. In 33rd spots was substitute Grevais Vasquez and even more shocking is that 32nd is that devastatingly bad Raymond Felton.

All Shooting: Ricky’s .381 FG% (career high) tied for 49th among the 54 point guards listed by ESPN with someone named Diante Garrett. 3 Point Shooting: His .331% ranked 39th among the same 54. (Unfortunately for the Wolves, Alexi Schved finished behind Ricky in both categories, and JJ Barea finished behind him on 3 point shooting. YIKES!) Rubio’s "peers" in the shooting ranks are rookies, career back-ups and NBA scrubs. You should NOT find your cornerstone point guard buried in this graveyard of shooting statistics.

2 points about the shooting:

Euros can shoot the basketball! 7 footers from Europe shoot well. 6’ 10 forwards can shoot well from distance. Euro guards can shoot. European equipment managers can shoot! Why? The European academy system used in both basketball and soccer is based on giving young players hours and hours of training in the fundamentals of the game. Euros tend to have great footwork, are decent ball handlers and most of all they can shoot. Jan Vesely was a Euro who was grabbed early as an athlete, even though he can’t shoot. He flushed out of the league in near record time.

Modern Point Guards need to Score: With current rules, point guards have flourished in the NBA. The modern pick, re-pick, and re-pick again is almost unstoppable in today’s league IF the point guard can shoot.

At least Bill Simmons in his August 11th Grantland article on Kevin Love (decision: Underrated) sees the true Ricky: "Rubio might be a fantastic passer and an underrated defender, but he’s also one of the worst shooters ever (an impossible 36.5 percent for his career, the third lowest mark since 1975)."

But Rubio helps his team in ways that stats don’t show, doesn’t he? This past season was a vital season for both the Wolves and Blazers. If there were not positive steps, then either Love or LaMarcus Aldridge could pressure the franchise to let them go. The Blazers hit the jackpot. The Wolves didn’t.

How much of the Wolves failure to improve can be blamed on Rubio’s failure to thrive? Love just finished his 2nd time making an all-NBA team. He is likely the best player that Ricky will play with in his career. Love is not like to make any public statements on his old teammate, but if Love saw All-Star potential in Ricky would he have been so quick to push for a change?

Even the coach search was impacted by Ricky. It is easy to make fun of Flip Saunders for "pulling a Cheney" in his search (I looked at all of the candidates and decided the best man was me!) but maybe the problem was not all on the Love decision. When Dave Joerger was flirting with the Wolves, the problem may have been a front office and fan base who see Ricky in ways that the rest of the NBA doesn’t.

Who would you take? Ignoring contract and age, if you were a franchise looking to be a play-off team/contender this season who would you take? Rick Rubio or

Chris Paul - Tony Parker - Russell Westbrook - Steph Curry

Damien Lillard - Goran Dragic - Mike Connelly - Ty Lawson

Jrue Holaday - Eric Bledsoe - Isaiah Thomas - Patrick Beverly

Darren Collison - Jameer Nelson - Dante Exum - Jeremy Lin

Clearly Ricky Rubio loses to all of Row one. Rational outsiders would also not swap anyone in Row 2 for Ricky. It is not unto Row 3 that you can have a discussion. Phoenix may have 3 PG’s who produce better than Rubio. At the best the Wolves will be re-building around the 9th best PG in the Western Conference (leaving out Eastern Stars like John Wall and Derrick Rose).

Time for an Extension: The Wolves are at the point where they can go all in and extend Rubio’s contract. Certainly some eye-popping contracts were given out this summer. If Minnesota sees Ricky as part of their core going forward, they will have the capacity to pay. Should they?

I have seen comments on Canis Hoopus on the extension (always unchallenged) that mention various amounts: $12/year, $52 million over 4 years, the Wolves can match the max if needed and can add a 5th year as well. As mind-boggling as these numbers are, the fact that no one challenges these guesses is more amazing. Did everyone on CH drink the same Kool-Aid?

With the explosion of good young point guards, it is not even clear who would swoop in to try and lure the Spaniard away. If Minnesota pays the amounts mentioned above, it will be the worst over-pay since the Wizards bid against themselves to max out Agent Zero.

2 Bold Predictions:

As long as Ricky Rubio is one of the top 3 players on the Wolves (unless the other 2 go by LBJ and KD) the team will still not make the play-offs. Without easy assists to K-Love and without being on the receiving end of his famous outlet passes, Rubio will struggle to maintain his previous numbers, much less take a needed leadership role.

Wolves Fans (and CH) will continue the love-fest with Ricky for 2 years, and then finally start to realize that they are over-paying a below-average point guard.

Go ahead and tell me how I am wrong. Without Love, Ricky will personally develop Andrew Wiggns into an All-World backcourt mate. Rubio will finally start nailing shots and develop into an All-Star/All-NBA point guard. Based on what we have seen so far says it isn’t going to happen.

This Spanish Emperor is not wearing clothes. And the dude can’t shoot.