What's wrong with you people. Get your Rubio trade fix here!

[AbeVigodaLive]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

That's probably a one-year outlier or something.

I don't remember discussing 4th quarter struggles on this forum in other seasons...

[thedoper]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

That's probably a one-year outlier or something.

I don't remember discussing 4th quarter struggles on this forum in other seasons...

Nice. It's a Minnesota problem. We are always waiting for something bad to happen.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

[thedoper]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

You can let Rubio skate for our performance in crunch time if you want. But I think it says something about the greater quality of the team when your young stars don't trust your floor leader in crunch time. A veteran floor leader should calm those nerves and set the tone for the extra pass. Rubio doesn't have that clout because no one trusts his shot. Rubio is not a passive PG, he needs the ball. If we are going to have a passive role for a PG in the 4th he needs to hit shots. If Rubio is the veteran leader he claims to want to be he has to bear some of the responsibility for the offense going in the toilet on his watch - in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

You can let Rubio skate for our performance in crunch time if you want. But I think it says something about the greater quality of the team when your young stars don't trust your floor leader in crunch time. A veteran floor leader should calm those nerves and set the tone for the extra pass. Rubio doesn't have that clout because no one trusts his shot. Rubio is not a passive PG, he needs the ball. If we are going to have a passive role for a PG in the 4th he needs to hit shots. If Rubio is the veteran leader he claims to want to be he has to bear some of the responsibility for the offense going in the toilet on his watch - in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Seems to me that when guys have trusted him, he's made solid plays and some big shots. He also helped win us a couple of crunch time games last year with his defense. And it wasn't just Rubio they didn't trust. We all saw hero ball and tired legs by KAT and Wiggins. It affected them on both sides. Not all their fault either based on how many minutes Thibs was playing them, plus he called the plays.

The bottom line is that Rubio has continued to improve his shooting efficiency - slowly but surely - and is absolute money from the line. Once he and Thibs got on the same page, he became a very solid scoring threat.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

You can let Rubio skate for our performance in crunch time if you want. But I think it says something about the greater quality of the team when your young stars don't trust your floor leader in crunch time. A veteran floor leader should calm those nerves and set the tone for the extra pass. Rubio doesn't have that clout because no one trusts his shot. Rubio is not a passive PG, he needs the ball. If we are going to have a passive role for a PG in the 4th he needs to hit shots. If Rubio is the veteran leader he claims to want to be he has to bear some of the responsibility for the offense going in the toilet on his watch - in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Seems to me that when guys have trusted him, he's made solid plays and some big shots. He also helped win us a couple of crunch time games last year with his defense. And it wasn't just Rubio they didn't trust. We all saw hero ball and tired legs by KAT and Wiggins. It affected them on both sides. Not all their fault either based on how many minutes Thibs was playing them, plus he called the plays.

The bottom line is that Rubio has continued to improve his shooting efficiency - slowly but surely - and is absolute money from the line. Once he and Thibs got on the same page, he became a very solid scoring threat.

That also conveniently happened when Zach left the lineup. We'll see if he can do that with all 3 of Zach, Wiggins and Towns on the floor. It very well could have just been a matter of his role increased a lot because the 3rd leading scorer went down and now we might just go back to the Ricky of the first few months of the year. We'll see.

[Phenom]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

You can let Rubio skate for our performance in crunch time if you want. But I think it says something about the greater quality of the team when your young stars don't trust your floor leader in crunch time. A veteran floor leader should calm those nerves and set the tone for the extra pass. Rubio doesn't have that clout because no one trusts his shot. Rubio is not a passive PG, he needs the ball. If we are going to have a passive role for a PG in the 4th he needs to hit shots. If Rubio is the veteran leader he claims to want to be he has to bear some of the responsibility for the offense going in the toilet on his watch - in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Seems to me that when guys have trusted him, he's made solid plays and some big shots. He also helped win us a couple of crunch time games last year with his defense. And it wasn't just Rubio they didn't trust. We all saw hero ball and tired legs by KAT and Wiggins. It affected them on both sides. Not all their fault either based on how many minutes Thibs was playing them, plus he called the plays.

The bottom line is that Rubio has continued to improve his shooting efficiency - slowly but surely - and is absolute money from the line. Once he and Thibs got on the same page, he became a very solid scoring threat.

This is the correct answer. Ricky gave everyone what we all wanted from him. Lets hope he keeps that up.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

You can let Rubio skate for our performance in crunch time if you want. But I think it says something about the greater quality of the team when your young stars don't trust your floor leader in crunch time. A veteran floor leader should calm those nerves and set the tone for the extra pass. Rubio doesn't have that clout because no one trusts his shot. Rubio is not a passive PG, he needs the ball. If we are going to have a passive role for a PG in the 4th he needs to hit shots. If Rubio is the veteran leader he claims to want to be he has to bear some of the responsibility for the offense going in the toilet on his watch - in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Seems to me that when guys have trusted him, he's made solid plays and some big shots. He also helped win us a couple of crunch time games last year with his defense. And it wasn't just Rubio they didn't trust. We all saw hero ball and tired legs by KAT and Wiggins. It affected them on both sides. Not all their fault either based on how many minutes Thibs was playing them, plus he called the plays.

The bottom line is that Rubio has continued to improve his shooting efficiency - slowly but surely - and is absolute money from the line. Once he and Thibs got on the same page, he became a very solid scoring threat.

That also conveniently happened when Zach left the lineup. We'll see if he can do that with all 3 of Zach, Wiggins and Towns on the floor. It very well could have just been a matter of his role increased a lot because the 3rd leading scorer went down and now we might just go back to the Ricky of the first few months of the year. We'll see.

Actually, he started improving once he and Thibs got on the same page and Thibs decided to run the offense more through Rubio versus the wings. In January (LaVine got hurt in February), Rubio averaged 10 PPG on 55 TS%, which is very solid, and 10 assists per game. And he did this while playing only about 31 MPG. As the 4th option in an offense that featured three 20+ PPG scorers, what more did you expect!?

And then yes, once LaVine went down, he became the third option and proceeded to average 15-17 PPG for the rest of the season, about what one would expect from a 3rd option on offense.

If you and Doper want a lead guard that can average 15+ PPG, then be prepared to part with LaVine, Wiggins, or KAT. As long as those three are healthy, it would be almost impossible for our PG (or any 4th option on offense) to average more than 10-12 PPG at best.

[thedoper]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

You can let Rubio skate for our performance in crunch time if you want. But I think it says something about the greater quality of the team when your young stars don't trust your floor leader in crunch time. A veteran floor leader should calm those nerves and set the tone for the extra pass. Rubio doesn't have that clout because no one trusts his shot. Rubio is not a passive PG, he needs the ball. If we are going to have a passive role for a PG in the 4th he needs to hit shots. If Rubio is the veteran leader he claims to want to be he has to bear some of the responsibility for the offense going in the toilet on his watch - in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Seems to me that when guys have trusted him, he's made solid plays and some big shots. He also helped win us a couple of crunch time games last year with his defense. And it wasn't just Rubio they didn't trust. We all saw hero ball and tired legs by KAT and Wiggins. It affected them on both sides. Not all their fault either based on how many minutes Thibs was playing them, plus he called the plays.

The bottom line is that Rubio has continued to improve his shooting efficiency - slowly but surely - and is absolute money from the line. Once he and Thibs got on the same page, he became a very solid scoring threat.

That also conveniently happened when Zach left the lineup. We'll see if he can do that with all 3 of Zach, Wiggins and Towns on the floor. It very well could have just been a matter of his role increased a lot because the 3rd leading scorer went down and now we might just go back to the Ricky of the first few months of the year. We'll see.

Actually, he started improving once he and Thibs got on the same page and Thibs decided to run the offense more through Rubio versus the wings. In January (LaVine got hurt in February), Rubio averaged 10 PPG on 55 TS%, which is very solid, and 10 assists per game. And he did this while playing only about 31 MPG. As the 4th option in an offense that featured three 20+ PPG scorers, what more did you expect!?

And then yes, once LaVine went down, he became the third option and proceeded to average 15-17 PPG for the rest of the season, about what one would expect from a 3rd option on offense.

If you and Doper want a lead guard that can average 15+ PPG, then be prepared to part with LaVine, Wiggins, or KAT. As long as those three are healthy, it would be almost impossible for our PG (or any 4th option on offense) to average more than 10-12 PPG at best.

I never said or implied that a lead guard should average 15+points a game. That being said, if Zach leaves because someone is a better player than him, that is fine. I wouldn't want a player with such a fragile ego on a winning team. What I have been saying I just want players who can make shots if possible, especially in a lead guard who has the ball for 10 seconds most possessions. If your convinced that Rubio's career highs caused by 30 games of mediocre shooting by league standards now makes him reliable so be it. I don't and believes that his poor shooting has an effect on our team's extremely inconsistent offense.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Rubio is totally polarizing, because every team would rather have players at all positions be able to make shots. There is variance to how much the other aspects of his game contributes to winning. Many of these things are "intangibles", which are by nature prone to polarizing conversations. Yes many talented teams could theoretically overcome his deficiencies. Despite our offensive successes last year, I am not sure we can. Even though we had great offensive highs, we were totally inconsistent, with dips often in crunch time when it mattered most. Our offensive rating was 10th for the regular season, but in the 4th quarter we were 24th in the league. There are still problems with our offense, that a pg who could get a basket every once and a while may really help with.

Rubio is polarizing on message boards, but I don't think front office personnel have vast differences of opinions on him. He fits well in a handful of places and not so well in more than a handful of places.

Rubio was our 4th leading scorer last season after the "big three" and he averaged 16 PPG after the all star break. His PPG and TS% were both career highs. In addition, he shot 43% in 4th quarters last year, which isn't bad (Jrue Holiday shot 42% as a point of comparison).

While none of these numbers jump out as spectacular, the idea that he is simply incapable of hitting a big shot or making a play for someone seems out of step with what actually happened.

What I saw happen was an offense that relied heavily on isolation in crunch time, with the two primary go-to guys often getting tunnel vision and not making the extra pass. Add to that some epic breakdowns on defense - often by the same two principals - and it led to some poor 4th quarter performances.

(also, our worst quarter in terms of net rating was the 3rd, not the 4th).

If you think Rubio is polarizing only on message boards and not front offices... your affinity for him has crossed over into rubedom.

And yes... Rubio had a very solid run the second half of last season. Is that a trend or mirage?

Hopefully, it's the trend. But we have 5.5 years prior to that that others might use to point out shooting will remain a problem at specific times in games.