Can Tonight's Game End the Rubio vs Burke Debate?

[Lipoli390]

World - I agree that developing a decent pull-up jumper would have the biggest positive impact on Ricky's game. But I'll add that Jason Kidd will end up in the Hall of Fame even though he never developed a decent pull-up jumper. Instead, he finished pretty well at the rim and developed a decent three-point set shot.

[worldK]

Lip, you have a point with kidd. But kidd is a lot stronger than rubio is, has better body control and can get his shot off or shoot over defenders when he wants. Rubio on the other hand, is not as strong as kidd is.

Rubio can still be effective though even without the mid range game but that's 1 skill that can trully make him an elite pg if he can be good at it.

[Lipoli390]

Lip, you have a point with kidd. But kidd is a lot stronger than rubio is, has better body control and can get his shot off or shoot over defenders when he wants. Rubio on the other hand, is not as strong as kidd is.

Rubio can still be effective though even without the mid range game but that's 1 skill that can trully make him an elite pg if he can be good at it.

Agree.

[AbeVigodaLive]

As noted by others, I didn't know it was a Burke -OR- Rubio thing.

I thought it was a Burke -OR- Muhammad/Dieng thing or even Barea thing. Who actually thought the Wolves should seriously consider replacing Rubio with Burke at the time of the draft?

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

What's kind of funny is that Kahn was right back when he justified the Rubio/Flynn pair of picks by saying the two could easily play together, harkening back to the Isiah Thomas/Joe Dumars tandem, both of whom could play on or off the ball. I agreed with him at the time. The problem is that his tactic for achieving this went horribly wrong by picking Flynn instead of Curry (or Lawson or Holiday or practically any other point guard from that draft class!).

We've seen short stints where Rubio has guarded opponent 2's and he usually gives them fits. With the exception of a tough-as-hell contested J, I don't think Alec Burks could do much of anything against Rubio last night. He even had his pocket picked clean.

So yeah, I think when a lot of us lament draft misses like Trey Burke, Steph Curry, or even McCollum, it's never in the context of replacing Rubio; it's all about supplementing Rubio with a more offensively minded player that can play on or off the ball backing him up or being paired with him. Johnny Flynn was the right strategy, just the wrong player.....

[KiwiMatt]

It's easy to over rate rookies playing on bad teams.

Burke's number almost replicate Jonny Flynn's numbers during his rookie season. Just saying.

[Coolbreeze44]

I could be wrong but I thought I read some "we should have drafted Burke and traded Rubio" sentiment. Did I dream that?

[AbeVigodaLive]

I could be wrong but I thought I read some "we should have drafted Burke and traded Rubio" sentiment. Did I dream that?

I dunno. I didn't see it.

I would have ripped those people for having made that claim. That's using A LOT of revisionist history. Rubio was supposed to make a bit of a leap this season and was entrenched as a franchise building block. The team was put together to win now.

To trade Rubio for Burke, a decent, but not great prospect... ?

Meh.

[horatio81 [enjin:7751176]]

What's the difference if it's Shabazz or Burke, neither one is getting any burn on a team coached by Adelman.

And Rubio's shooting woes would be tolerable if they were standard-issue shooting woes. You know, like a young player shooting 40% from the field. Ricky's shooting woes are the worst in history. He's not like Rondo or Kidd. He's actually much worse.

You can probably tailor a roster to overcome his limitations, but what would that roster look like? Athletes and shooters all over the floor? At least one other player who can handle? Isn't that sort of situation conducive to the success of any point guard?

Think about this: his atrocious shooting and finishing means he effectively cannot play off the ball at all. He wouldn't even be a good fit next to Kevin Durant or Lebron James. Is that something you'd say about a top 10 point guard? I'm not saying he'd experience no success playing next to those guys, but they'd be better off playing with almost any other top 15 pg who can space the floor and keep his defender out of the superstar's way.

Ricky's game isn't okay. If he doesn't improve his finishing and shooting by 5% or more within the next 1-2 years, he'll continue to fluctuate between the second and third tiers at his position. That's not good enough to contend in today's perimeter-dominated NBA.

[bleedspeed]

I think we need a PG coach for Rubio. The guy that would help him in my opinion would be Sam Cassell. He would be able to help Rubio figure out how to get the most out of a midrange game and build up his confidence.