Rubio vs. Teague-let's continue to monitor

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Is this thread still relevant?

I think so. The Butler deal was a no brainer, so the Rubio/Teague swap is the most relevant deal on which to evaluate Thibs the GM...and the board is relatively split on this move, which makes it a good talker. I was happy to see the reports that Teague had a good night, but with Russ going off for 17, 9 and 8, this is the 6th consecutive game in which our PG has been outplayed (no shame of course in being outplayed by Russ). It's still too early to conclude on this one, but I still think we would be a stronger team with Ricky (not to mentoin more flexible financially). And also more watchable...I worry a little about Teague's attitude (he seemed to pout when he was benched in game 1, and he also clearly gave up in the Pacers' game), and that's one thing we never had to worry about with Ricky.

Respectively disagree LST. Think you needed to watch the game (understand you are away). In his role I honestly don't think I could ask more from teague. Got us back in the game when we fell down double degits.

Teague played a lot better in his role than Westbrook did in his. If you don't believe me read a thunder message board from last night's game.

Still can have these debates but yesterday was teague best game yet and if he is consistent (what he hasn't been) what he brought last night is better than ricky could bring.

Come on, kek...I need Russ to have outplayed Teague to support my narrative that Teague has been outplayed by every opposing PG and that the Rubio swap was a bad deal :cool: !

All kidding aside, the box score tells me that Teague had a good game. But when your opponent outscores you by 10 points and almost has a triple double, it's a stretch to say you outplayed him. I'm going to stay with my assertion that Teague has yet to win a matchup...including of course the head to head with Ricky.

I recognize that I saw Teague in person at his worst against Indiana (when his defense and effort were horrid) so my opinion may be jaded. But as I try to determine why our defesne has been so much worse this season than last, Teague replacing Ricky in the starting lineup seems to be the most important variable (especially since Butler missed 2 games, and in all honesty, should be a reason our defense should be better, and Taj replacing G was also supposed to improve our defense). It's easy to conclude that replacing Ricky with Teague is the primary reason for our poorer defense in our first 6 games.

I really want to be wrong on this one, but I"m not seeing enough evidence to tell me Teague has improved this team.

Let's not act like we were a good defensive team with Ricky. And this years numbers are heavily skewed by two dreadful performances in just 6 games. The way he played against OKC is what we brought him in to do. Go 17/10. Scoring when the defense gives it to him and using that scoring to setup his teammates. Ricky doesn't do that. He may have given up 27, but keeping that matchup within 10 points is huge when you factor in he's our 4th best piece and Westbrook is their best player. If your negative mismatches can keep their matchup close you'll win a lot of games because your positive mismatches should be able to win you the game at that point. Our starters beat them 105-97 last night and given how their roster is constructed, that's gonna beat them every time.

No, we weren't a good defensive team with Ricky either...but we also didn't have Butler and Taj back then, so we should be much better now, and we jsut aren't. And we never nearly as bad with Ricky as we were in the two disaster games this year. I know the season is young, but the evidence seems to point to a big dropoff in defense at PG. I'm still hopeful because Teague came here with a decent reputation, but he has been a disappointment to me so far ths year. Frankly with his small stature (Tyus is a giant compared to him) he needs to hustle all the time to be effective on D, and consistent hustle has not been his calling card this year.

[Monster]

Is this thread still relevant?

I think so. The Butler deal was a no brainer, so the Rubio/Teague swap is the most relevant deal on which to evaluate Thibs the GM...and the board is relatively split on this move, which makes it a good talker. I was happy to see the reports that Teague had a good night, but with Russ going off for 17, 9 and 8, this is the 6th consecutive game in which our PG has been outplayed (no shame of course in being outplayed by Russ). It's still too early to conclude on this one, but I still think we would be a stronger team with Ricky (not to mentoin more flexible financially). And also more watchable...I worry a little about Teague's attitude (he seemed to pout when he was benched in game 1, and he also clearly gave up in the Pacers' game), and that's one thing we never had to worry about with Ricky.

Respectively disagree LST. Think you needed to watch the game (understand you are away). In his role I honestly don't think I could ask more from teague. Got us back in the game when we fell down double degits.

Teague played a lot better in his role than Westbrook did in his. If you don't believe me read a thunder message board from last night's game.

Still can have these debates but yesterday was teague best game yet and if he is consistent (what he hasn't been) what he brought last night is better than ricky could bring.

Come on, kek...I need Russ to have outplayed Teague to support my narrative that Teague has been outplayed by every opposing PG and that the Rubio swap was a bad deal :cool: !

All kidding aside, the box score tells me that Teague had a good game. But when your opponent outscores you by 10 points and almost has a triple double, it's a stretch to say you outplayed him. I'm going to stay with my assertion that Teague has yet to win a matchup...including of course the head to head with Ricky.

I recognize that I saw Teague in person at his worst against Indiana (when his defense and effort were horrid) so my opinion may be jaded. But as I try to determine why our defesne has been so much worse this season than last, Teague replacing Ricky in the starting lineup seems to be the most important variable (especially since Butler missed 2 games, and in all honesty, should be a reason our defense should be better, and Taj replacing G was also supposed to improve our defense). It's easy to conclude that replacing Ricky with Teague is the primary reason for our poorer defense in our first 6 games.

I really want to be wrong on this one, but I"m not seeing enough evidence to tell me Teague has improved this team.

Let's not act like we were a good defensive team with Ricky. And this years numbers are heavily skewed by two dreadful performances in just 6 games. The way he played against OKC is what we brought him in to do. Go 17/10. Scoring when the defense gives it to him and using that scoring to setup his teammates. Ricky doesn't do that. He may have given up 27, but keeping that matchup within 10 points is huge when you factor in he's our 4th best piece and Westbrook is their best player. If your negative mismatches can keep their matchup close you'll win a lot of games because your positive mismatches should be able to win you the game at that point. Our starters beat them 105-97 last night and given how their roster is constructed, that's gonna beat them every time.

No, we weren't a good defensive team with Ricky either...but we also didn't have Butler and Taj back then, so we should be much better now, and we jsut aren't. And we never nearly as bad with Ricky as we were in the two disaster games this year. I know the season is young, but the evidence seems to point to a big dropoff in defense at PG. I'm still hopeful because Teague came here with a decent reputation, but he has been a disappointment to me so far ths year. Frankly with his small stature (Tyus is a giant compared to him) he needs to hustle all the time to be effective on D, and consistent hustle has not been his calling card this year.

Rubio played on some really poor defensive efforts last year.

Teague is short but he is very athletic and has a 6'7" wingspan. They measured basically the same height in their respective draft combines. Both were young when drafted so they could have grown.

[Monster]

Looking at the box score Rubio had a nice offensive game tonight against the Lakers. If you get a chance look up the outback duck Mitchell had. My favorite part is watching Ball on that play. Mitchell is looking like a pretty good player.

[thedoper]

We were one the worst defensive teams in the league with Ricky. We weren't just bad, we were right at the bottom. I know it was never his fault, but he was a consistent component of horrible defensive teams. Last year Rubio also had mediocre to horrible individual defensive stats. I can count on my hands the offensive stat lines Ricky had that were comprable to Teague's night against OKC and were just 6 games in. I don't even really think it's that close anymore.

[kekgeek]

We were one the worst defensive teams in the league with Ricky. We weren't just bad, we were right at the bottom. I know it was never his fault, but he was a consistent component of horrible defensive teams. Last year Rubio also had mediocre to horrible individual defensive stats. I can count on my hands the offensive stat lines Ricky had that were comprable to Teague's night against OKC and were just 6 games in. I don't even really think it's that close anymore.

People are acting like Rubio never had a bad game ever. It's going to be like this all season, every good and bad game teague has people are going to go to the extremes.

I don't think teague has played good this year but teague has a better PER, Ast/TO ratio, being more efficient from the field. Averages 1 less pt and 2 less rebs per game but also averages 4 less minutes a game and has 4% less usage rate. Same win amount of win shares.

So everyone is saying teague is playing bad but almost every metric has them identical in impact this season.

I really hope for the best for Ricky (had a great game tomorrow against the Lakers) but let's stop acting like everything would be Rosie with him as the pg.

Now I can see it now, the argument will be well we are spending 5 mil more on Teague than ricky for similar impact. Well who were we adding who would have made an impact for us with 5 extra mil and don't CJ Miles because that 5 mil would have still not gotten us enough money to acquire him.

Now we have a 1st this year that we didn't have other wise. (Assuming we make the playoffs) and we can add young cheap talent and develop talent in tyus, Patton and this 1st to be ready to contribute when players like taj contact is up. Or we can trade Aldrich and that 1st to add a player around 10 mil a year if we feel we can improve.


I will probably have quite a bit of these rants this year and I apologize for that. But I can already tell I am going to get annoyed with all this if we had ricky, he would not allow the opposing pg to score and he would average 20+ assists.

Let's stop looking at the past at one of the most favorite wolves of all time who never lead the wolves to the playoffs and appreciate that Teague based on all metrics is bringing identical production (in different areas than ricky) is helping this team as much as ricky would have.

Sorry for the rant. Everyone have an awesome day

[Monster]

We were one the worst defensive teams in the league with Ricky. We weren't just bad, we were right at the bottom. I know it was never his fault, but he was a consistent component of horrible defensive teams. Last year Rubio also had mediocre to horrible individual defensive stats. I can count on my hands the offensive stat lines Ricky had that were comprable to Teague's night against OKC and were just 6 games in. I don't even really think it's that close anymore.

People are acting like Rubio never had a bad game ever. It's going to be like this all season, every good and bad game teague has people are going to go to the extremes.

I don't think teague has played good this year but teague has a better PER, Ast/TO ratio, being more efficient from the field. Averages 1 less pt and 2 less rebs per game but also averages 4 less minutes a game and has 4% less usage rate. Same win amount of win shares.

So everyone is saying teague is playing bad but almost every metric has them identical in impact this season.

I really hope for the best for Ricky (had a great game tomorrow against the Lakers) but let's stop acting like everything would be Rosie with him as the pg.

Now I can see it now, the argument will be well we are spending 5 mil more on Teague than ricky for similar impact. Well who were we adding who would have made an impact for us with 5 extra mil and don't CJ Miles because that 5 mil would have still not gotten us enough money to acquire him.

Now we have a 1st this year that we didn't have other wise. (Assuming we make the playoffs) and we can add young cheap talent and develop talent in tyus, Patton and this 1st to be ready to contribute when players like taj contact is up. Or we can trade Aldrich and that 1st to add a player around 10 mil a year if we feel we can improve.


I will probably have quite a bit of these rants this year and I apologize for that. But I can already tell I am going to get annoyed with all this if we had ricky, he would not allow the opposing pg to score and he would average 20+ assists.

Let's stop looking at the past at one of the most favorite wolves of all time who never lead the wolves to the playoffs and appreciate that Teague based on all metrics is bringing identical production (in different areas than ricky) is helping this team as much as ricky would have.

Sorry for the rant. Everyone have an awesome day

Well said. Just repost this like every 3-5 days here in this thread. :)

[Lipoli390]

We were one the worst defensive teams in the league with Ricky. We weren't just bad, we were right at the bottom. I know it was never his fault, but he was a consistent component of horrible defensive teams. Last year Rubio also had mediocre to horrible individual defensive stats. I can count on my hands the offensive stat lines Ricky had that were comprable to Teague's night against OKC and were just 6 games in. I don't even really think it's that close anymore.

People are acting like Rubio never had a bad game ever. It's going to be like this all season, every good and bad game teague has people are going to go to the extremes.

I don't think teague has played good this year but teague has a better PER, Ast/TO ratio, being more efficient from the field. Averages 1 less pt and 2 less rebs per game but also averages 4 less minutes a game and has 4% less usage rate. Same win amount of win shares.

So everyone is saying teague is playing bad but almost every metric has them identical in impact this season.

I really hope for the best for Ricky (had a great game tomorrow against the Lakers) but let's stop acting like everything would be Rosie with him as the pg.

Now I can see it now, the argument will be well we are spending 5 mil more on Teague than ricky for similar impact. Well who were we adding who would have made an impact for us with 5 extra mil and don't CJ Miles because that 5 mil would have still not gotten us enough money to acquire him.

Now we have a 1st this year that we didn't have other wise. (Assuming we make the playoffs) and we can add young cheap talent and develop talent in tyus, Patton and this 1st to be ready to contribute when players like taj contact is up. Or we can trade Aldrich and that 1st to add a player around 10 mil a year if we feel we can improve.


I will probably have quite a bit of these rants this year and I apologize for that. But I can already tell I am going to get annoyed with all this if we had ricky, he would not allow the opposing pg to score and he would average 20+ assists.

Let's stop looking at the past at one of the most favorite wolves of all time who never lead the wolves to the playoffs and appreciate that Teague based on all metrics is bringing identical production (in different areas than ricky) is helping this team as much as ricky would have.

Sorry for the rant. Everyone have an awesome day

I appreciate your rant, geek. I actually agree with a lot of what you wrote. But I honestly don't think people on this board are implying that everything would be rosy with Ricky at PG or acting like Ricky never had a bad game. I do think it's interesting to speculate on the relative impact of what was effectively a Rubio/Teague swap and that's all folks are doing.

I don't think we have nearly enough evidence to judge one way or the other, but folks can keep tally game to game as we go. So far I miss Ricky's energy and defense. But I have a lot more confidence when Teague puts up a shot than I did when Ricky did the same. And I've seen Teague make some nice defensive plays -- taking a couple charges against OKC on the road and stripping Ricky a couple times against Utah. It's also worth noting that Teague is still adjusting to a new coach and teammates.

At the end of the day, I don't think the issue is whether one is better than the other. They are better at different things, so the question is which one fits best with the rest of the team. Thibs clearly thought Teague was a better fit. We'll find out over the course of the season whether he was right.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Kek, you are wrong about the money part. Had we kept Rubio at his salary level, we would have had the money to pursue CJ Miles. Instead, we had to go for a lesser player in Crawford. In other words, take Crawford's salary + the $5M savings of keeping Rubio and we'd have enough to make a run at CJ Miles. We really could use a high volume 3-point gunner like him in our offense. Plus you can't get much worse defensively than Crawford.

I just think it was a poor ROI on salary $. We could have kept an equally good PG (again, with different strengths and weaknesses) that is younger and cheaper while at the same time having the $ to go after a higher tier free agent than Crawford or Bazz. We are very weak on the wing behind Butler and Wiggins.

[kekgeek]

Kek, you are wrong about the money part. Had we kept Rubio at his salary level, we would have had the money to pursue CJ Miles. Instead, we had to go for a lesser player in Crawford. In other words, take Crawford's salary + the $5M savings of keeping Rubio and we'd have enough to make a run at CJ Miles. We really could use a high volume 3-point gunner like him in our offense. Plus you can't get much worse defensively than Crawford.

I just think it was a poor ROI on salary $. We could have kept an equally good PG (again, with different strengths and weaknesses) that is younger and cheaper while at the same time having the $ to go after a higher tier free agent than Crawford or Bazz. We are very weak on the wing behind Butler and Wiggins.

I might be wrong but didn't we use the mini exception (might have the wrong term) on Crawford. Meaning we had to start the offseason with cap space (like we did) and after we used the cap space we are granted the mini exception what we used to sign Crawford. And you can't combined the mini exception and cap space because we don't get the mini exception until we use the cap space.

Correct me if I'm wrong

*I think you have been super fair on the Rubio argument even though I disagree

[kekgeek]

We were one the worst defensive teams in the league with Ricky. We weren't just bad, we were right at the bottom. I know it was never his fault, but he was a consistent component of horrible defensive teams. Last year Rubio also had mediocre to horrible individual defensive stats. I can count on my hands the offensive stat lines Ricky had that were comprable to Teague's night against OKC and were just 6 games in. I don't even really think it's that close anymore.

People are acting like Rubio never had a bad game ever. It's going to be like this all season, every good and bad game teague has people are going to go to the extremes.

I don't think teague has played good this year but teague has a better PER, Ast/TO ratio, being more efficient from the field. Averages 1 less pt and 2 less rebs per game but also averages 4 less minutes a game and has 4% less usage rate. Same win amount of win shares.

So everyone is saying teague is playing bad but almost every metric has them identical in impact this season.

I really hope for the best for Ricky (had a great game tomorrow against the Lakers) but let's stop acting like everything would be Rosie with him as the pg.

Now I can see it now, the argument will be well we are spending 5 mil more on Teague than ricky for similar impact. Well who were we adding who would have made an impact for us with 5 extra mil and don't CJ Miles because that 5 mil would have still not gotten us enough money to acquire him.

Now we have a 1st this year that we didn't have other wise. (Assuming we make the playoffs) and we can add young cheap talent and develop talent in tyus, Patton and this 1st to be ready to contribute when players like taj contact is up. Or we can trade Aldrich and that 1st to add a player around 10 mil a year if we feel we can improve.


I will probably have quite a bit of these rants this year and I apologize for that. But I can already tell I am going to get annoyed with all this if we had ricky, he would not allow the opposing pg to score and he would average 20+ assists.

Let's stop looking at the past at one of the most favorite wolves of all time who never lead the wolves to the playoffs and appreciate that Teague based on all metrics is bringing identical production (in different areas than ricky) is helping this team as much as ricky would have.

Sorry for the rant. Everyone have an awesome day

I appreciate your rant, geek. I actually agree with a lot of what you wrote. But I honestly don't think people on this board are implying that everything would be rosy with Ricky at PG or acting like Ricky never had a bad game. I do think it's interesting to speculate on the relative impact of what was effectively a Rubio/Teague swap and that's all folks are doing.

I don't think we have nearly enough evidence to judge one way or the other, but folks can keep tally game to game as we go. So far I miss Ricky's energy and defense. But I have a lot more confidence when Teague puts up a shot than I did when Ricky did the same. And I've seen Teague make some nice defensive plays -- taking a couple charges against OKC on the road and stripping Ricky a couple times against Utah. It's also worth noting that Teague is still adjusting to a new coach and teammates.

At the end of the day, I don't think the issue is whether one is better than the other. They are better at different things, so the question is which one fits best with the rest of the team. Thibs clearly thought Teague was a better fit. We'll find out over the course of the season whether he was right.

I think I have just been upset that after the Pistons game people said ricky never let this happen. Well last year @DET we lost be 27. So games like that happened with ricky.

Then LST (who I enjoy the back and forth with) mentions the logical reason he can see how our defense has been bad is the difference between Rubio and teague. Well we have been garbage every year ricky has been in the league. We were garbage last year. Even though ricky has been a good defender as a team we have been garbage.

Also give it time, numbers are going to be massively skewed after to pathetic performances on defense.

We have to get better and teague has to be more consistent but in wins I feel like the defense has been solid (not great) and teague had been good.

Also it annoyed me a bit on saying teague has been outplayed every game. He is our 4th option he is not asked to do as much. And I would say in the last OKC game teague did better in what he is asked to do compared to what Westbrook is asked to do.

I don't think we will be able to say if ricky or teague for sure would be better, because of the role they play on the team. Ricky is asked to run offense for the jazz all the time while teague has to play a supporting piece. And in that role last year Rubio really struggled at the beginning.

Don't think we will ever know because of role they play on the team, to say ricky world be or would not be better is all hypothetical