Rubio by the numbers

[AbeVigodaLive]

Just to play Devil's Advocate... we could compare Rubio to a select few playoff PGs... or all of them:

WS/48:*
Rubio - .119 (13th)... ahead of Dragic, George Hill, Beverly and Williams
Curry - .318
Lillard - .165
Irving - .143
Westbrook - .245
Walker - .165
Lowry - .196
R. Jackson - .136
I. Thomas - .177
G. Hill - .118
C. Paul - .253
P. Beverley - .102
Teague - .125
Conley - .144
Parker -.142
Dragic - .096
D. Williams - 0.83

PER
Rubio - 17.6 (12th) ahead of Williams, Hill, Beverley, Parker, Dragic
Curry - 31.5
Lillard - 22.2
Irving - 19.9
Westbrook - 27.6
Walker - 20.8
Lowry - 22.2
R. Jackson - 19.6
I. Thomas - 21.5
G. Hill - 13.2
C. Paul - 26.2
P. Beverley - 13.0
Teague - 17.9
Conley - 19.4
Parker - 16.2
Dragic - 15.5
D. Williams - 14.6

VORP
Rubio - 2.3 (9th) right in the middle.
Curry - 9.8
Lillard - 3.8
Irving - 1.5
Westbrook - 8.3
Walker - 4.4
Lowry - 6.3
R. Jackson - 2.6
I. Thomas - 3.3
G. Hill - 2.2
C. Paul - 6.0
P. Beverley - 1.6
Teague - 1.3
Conley - 1.7
Parker - 1.0
Dragic - 1.6
D. Williams - 1.0

Seems to me that Rubio holds his own among the lower tier playoff PGs but isn't very close to the upper echelon PGs. To be fair, that might be enough. I hope to learn more about where he stands after watching him play meaningful NBA games, especially playoff games.


[Note: Guys in italics got out of Round 1.]

[Monster]

Just to play Devil's Advocate... we could compare Rubio to a select few playoff PGs... or all of them:

WS/48:*
Rubio - .119 (13th)... ahead of Dragic, George Hill, Beverly and Williams
Curry - .318
Lillard - .165
Irving - .143
Westbrook - .245
Walker - .165
Lowry - .196
R. Jackson - .136
I. Thomas - .177
G. Hill - .118
C. Paul - .253
P. Beverley - .102
Teague - .125
Conley - .144
Parker -.142
Dragic - .096
D. Williams - 0.83

PER
Rubio - 17.6 (12th) ahead of Williams, Hill, Beverley, Parker, Dragic
Curry - 31.5
Lillard - 22.2
Irving - 19.9
Westbrook - 27.6
Walker - 20.8
Lowry - 22.2
R. Jackson - 19.6
I. Thomas - 21.5
G. Hill - 13.2
C. Paul - 26.2
P. Beverley - 13.0
Teague - 17.9
Conley - 19.4
Parker - 16.2
Dragic - 15.5
D. Williams - 14.6

VORP
Rubio - 2.3 (9th) right in the middle.
Curry - 9.8
Lillard - 3.8
Irving - 1.5
Westbrook - 8.3
Walker - 4.4
Lowry - 6.3
R. Jackson - 2.6
I. Thomas - 3.3
G. Hill - 2.2
C. Paul - 6.0
P. Beverley - 1.6
Teague - 1.3
Conley - 1.7
Parker - 1.0
Dragic - 1.6
D. Williams - 1.0

Seems to me that Rubio holds his own among the lower tier playoff PGs but isn't very close to the upper echelon PGs. To be fair, that might be enough. I hope to learn more about where he stands after watching him play meaningful NBA games, especially playoff games.

These are interesting breakdowns. I will say that to me one thing that matters when it comes to how impactful these numbers are for one player or another is how good of a player are they and asked to be. Chris Paul is the best most important player on his team IMO so it makes sense he has some of those eye popping numbers along with being a no-brainer future HOFer. Kyle Lowrey is at worst 3rd but possibly #1 on his team. I think most of us would say Rubio won't be one of the top 2 best players on a playoff team (maybe as low as 4th) but he could still be top 3 in terms of importance. I think a lot of us can see him dropping down to 4th-ish in terms of players and that makes some of his numbers more reasonable. Like Abe says. It's finally time to see things play out not only in the regular season but hopefully a playoff series.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

If one believes that the point guard MUST be the best or second best player on the roster to win in the playoffs, then Rubio is not our point guard. Of course, guys with multiple rings like Dennis Johnson, Derek Fisher, John Paxson, Ron Harper, and Mario Chalmers would likely disagree with that premise.

[AbeVigodaLive]

If one believes that the point guard MUST be the best or second best player on the roster to win in the playoffs, then Rubio is not our point guard. Of course, guys with multiple rings like Dennis Johnson, Derek Fisher, John Paxson, Ron Harper, and Mario Chalmers would likely disagree with that premise.

Sure. But to be fair here, I think it's important to note the type of teammates those guys had..

- Paxson/Harper played in the Triangle which marginalizes PGs... and each played next to Michael Jordan. And Harper was always a SG previously. The PG label seems shaky there.
- Fisher won titles in the Triangle next to Kobe Bryant.
- Mario Chalmers won next to LeBron James and Co.
- Dennis Johnson is a HOFer who played with Bird and Co. He might be the one legit PG on the list, considering he was an All Star performer and made the NBA Finals as one of the best guys on his team in Seattle.

None of them were the primary ballhandlers for their club. That was left to the players mentioned... each of whom is arguably among the 10 greatest players in NBA history.

Towns is fantastic. But I don't know if he's THAT good. And as a big, he's not going to be able to create like those other guys from the outside-in...

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

If one believes that the point guard MUST be the best or second best player on the roster to win in the playoffs, then Rubio is not our point guard. Of course, guys with multiple rings like Dennis Johnson, Derek Fisher, John Paxson, Ron Harper, and Mario Chalmers would likely disagree with that premise.

It has nothing to do with being a PG or any other position. It has to do with being the primary ball handler which most of the names you brought up were not for their teams. If Ricky is gonna be Derek Fisher or Ron Harper and spot up and play defense that's fine as long as Zach or Wiggins can create most of the offense. If they can't though and Ricky has to continue to be the primary ball handler, that's when we run into problems with him. It's not a PG issue and never has been. It's the fact that he happens to be the primary ball handler and can't score that's the problem. Imagine if Tony Allen was Memphis' primary ball handler. It would be a disaster. That's the point with Ricky come playoff time. You can't argue he can spot up and be the 4th best guy and let other guys carry the offense while expecting him to be the primary ball handler and playmaker for those guys because teams are gonna make him become a scorer whether he can do that or not. They're gonna let Ricky try to beat them and focus on cutting off his passing lanes to other players.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

If one believes that the point guard MUST be the best or second best player on the roster to win in the playoffs, then Rubio is not our point guard. Of course, guys with multiple rings like Dennis Johnson, Derek Fisher, John Paxson, Ron Harper, and Mario Chalmers would likely disagree with that premise.

Sure. But to be fair here, I think it's important to note the type of teammates those guys had..

Paxson/Harper played in the Triangle which marginalizes PGs... and each played next to Michael Jordan. And Harper was always a SG previously. The PG label seems shaky there.
Fisher won titles in the Triangle next to Kobe Bryant.
Mario Chalmers won next to LeBron James and Co.
Dennis Johnson is a HOFer who played with Bird and Co. He might be the one legit PG on the list, considering he was an All Star performer and made the NBA Finals as one of the best guys on his team in Seattle.

None of them were the primary ballhandlers for their club. That was left to the players mentioned... each of whom is arguably among the 10 greatest players in NBA history.

Towns is fantastic. But I don't know if he's THAT good. And as a big, he's not going to be able to create like those other guys from the outside-in...

My comparison started with Khans' request for comparisons against other starting level PGs, as he completely discounted Hockey's stats. I picked a handful that I thought were in his "tier" - they just happened to be on teams that went to the playoffs.

Now we're trying to parse out how he compares to championship contending starting PGs and whether he'd fit on the pantheon of all-time great teams with mediocre-to-average PGs.

I'm with Lip. I give up!!!!

[AbeVigodaLive]

If one believes that the point guard MUST be the best or second best player on the roster to win in the playoffs, then Rubio is not our point guard. Of course, guys with multiple rings like Dennis Johnson, Derek Fisher, John Paxson, Ron Harper, and Mario Chalmers would likely disagree with that premise.

Sure. But to be fair here, I think it's important to note the type of teammates those guys had..

Paxson/Harper played in the Triangle which marginalizes PGs... and each played next to Michael Jordan. And Harper was always a SG previously. The PG label seems shaky there.
Fisher won titles in the Triangle next to Kobe Bryant.
Mario Chalmers won next to LeBron James and Co.
Dennis Johnson is a HOFer who played with Bird and Co. He might be the one legit PG on the list, considering he was an All Star performer and made the NBA Finals as one of the best guys on his team in Seattle.

None of them were the primary ballhandlers for their club. That was left to the players mentioned... each of whom is arguably among the 10 greatest players in NBA history.

Towns is fantastic. But I don't know if he's THAT good. And as a big, he's not going to be able to create like those other guys from the outside-in...

My comparison started with Khans' request for comparisons against other starting level PGs, as he completely discounted Hockey's stats. I picked a handful that I thought were in his "tier" - they just happened to be on teams that went to the playoffs.

Now we're trying to parse out how he compares to championship contending starting PGs and whether he'd fit on the pantheon of all-time great teams with mediocre-to-average PGs.

I'm with Lip. I give up!!!!

Whoa. Whoa.

I commented directly to your posts because I thought both were slightly disingenuous, even if well-intentioned. I think you're one of the more level-headed guys here, but we were nearing some dangerous slopes in this thread.

I think adding more context was more than warranted in both cases. I'm not in the Rubio Must Go crowd. Far from it. But I will point out additional information when warranted to add to the bigger picture so we're not looking at our favorites with green/blue colored glasses every time.

For example, do we really want to compare Rubio with the likes of Deron Williams and Patrick Beverley? Even the biggest Rubio Rube/Hater expects more from him than that...

[Duke13]

Hockey,

Those are nice stats. I'm gonna comment on the 40-42 season. My memory is a little foggy, but I remember the point differential we had that year should of represented a 50 win team. I remember many of those games where we had 20-30 point leads, crazy!

I wasn't the biggest Adelman fan while he was here. Mainly because he refused to play the younger guys, when I thought Gorgi and Bazz deserves minutes their rookie year, especially because the bench was so bad. With that said no arguing Adelman wasn't a great offensive coach. The bench was terrible that year, can't argue that, but our starters were also terrible in many of those 4th quarters and couldn't close games. At certain points of the year Adelman refused to play Ricky to close games out because he felt he was a deterant offensively and used JJ. I'm sure many remember that! The game is played differently the last 6-7 minutes of an NBA game, much like how NBA playoff games are played. Difficult to have your primary ball handler/playmaker so limited individually as an offensive player, I think it showed during that year.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Britt Robson seems to be almost in panic mode about the possibility of Thibs moving Rubio too early. He tweets three stats to demonstrate Rubio's value:

1) Ricky was 4th in the NBA last year in assist to turnover ratio

2) Rubio on court last year: +18 in 2323 minutes
Rubio off court last year: -308 in 1653 minutes

3) During Ricky's 5-year career, the Wolves are 114-164 when he plays, and 28-88 when he doesn't.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Britt Robson seems to be almost in panic mode about the possibility of Thibs moving Rubio too early. He tweets three stats to demonstrate Rubio's value:

1) Ricky was 4th in the NBA last year in assist to turnover ratio

2) Rubio on court last year: +18 in 2323 minutes
Rubio off court last year: -308 in 1653 minutes

3) During Ricky's 5-year career, the Wolves are 114-164 when he plays, and 28-88 when he doesn't.

As has been noted many many times... does #2 and #3 say more about Rubio... or his teammates? I'm in the belief that there's a bit of both there. But I'm all for keeping him longer. Obviously, he has legit talent. And I want to see for myself how he can play and help a team with legit young talent AND a legit coach.

But some coaches value better shooting from the primary ball handler. It might just come to a preference/comfort thing. I might be disappointed because I think Rubio is fun... but it's understandable. The question becomes what about the other 30 teams.

Is there somebody out there who values what Rubio does do well to extremely well enough to pony up for him if the Wolves decide to move on?