What does everyone think of Ricky?

[Monster]

Ricky has made some steady but not spectacular improvement. keep in mind he did come off a serious knee injury and so this year he was just rounding back into form. I think the one thing I really like is his cutting back on his TOs this year.

Here is the tough thing with Rubio. Does he try and become a scorer or does he lay back and play his old man Jason Kidd type game which seems to be the thing he is either used to doing or is what he would prefer? I have said its ok if he throws up some crap shots and screws up some plays because he is trying to create for himself or score. He needs to try at 23 he is too young not to. I think he can get good enough on offense and shooting to keep teams more honest. The one thing he has shown he can do is hit spot up 3 pointers at a solid rate. I still like Rubio alot, but like others have said how much is he worth? I agree unless he will be waiting another year before he resigns an extension. I can't blame him since he will likely be playing under a new coach etc. I also think he probably needs to be turned loose more.

[Mstermisty [enjin:6864008]]

I'm with him 100%. Overall since the all-star game he has shown improvement, yet he is still capable of a game like last night where he is a liability scoring the ball (still distributed pretty well though).

Two things:

1) Would love to see us sign him for a reasonable contract sooner than later, and then hope he continues to improve and he looks underpaid by the end of next year.

2) A TOP priority this off-season is finding a legitimate backup point guard to play behind him, and possibly beside him during crunch time. Look at the Clips, they have the best point guard in the game in Chris Paul. Despite that they somehow had Bledsoe backing him up, and then when he became too good to keep, they picked up Collison, who has been very good. The Wolves could replace Barea with a bag of chips and it might be an improvement, but imagine if we actually go out and find a Collison type player? Ricky could have an off-night and it wouldn't hurt us nearly as much (look at last night for example--Ricky 0-4 with no points...but then JJ was 2-11...uhg).

[Monster]

I'm with him 100%. Overall since the all-star game he has shown improvement, yet he is still capable of a game like last night where he is a liability scoring the ball (still distributed pretty well though).

Two things:

1) Would love to see us sign him for a reasonable contract sooner than later, and then hope he continues to improve and he looks underpaid by the end of next year.

2) A TOP priority this off-season is finding a legitimate backup point guard to play behind him, and possibly beside him during crunch time. Look at the Clips, they have the best point guard in the game in Chris Paul. Despite that they somehow had Bledsoe backing him up, and then when he became too good to keep, they picked up Collison, who has been very good. The Wolves could replace Barea with a bag of chips and it might be an improvement, but imagine if we actually go out and find a Collison type player? Ricky could have an off-night and it wouldn't hurt us nearly as much (look at last night for example--Ricky 0-4 with no points...but then JJ was 2-11...uhg).

Like I've said in a couple other threads I don't understand why we didn't pursue (or accept the pursuit) of someone with more game than Price. I think Flip really thought Brown was going to make the roster and he got cut by the 76ers. ouch. lol There were guys out there that were really interested that were upgrades over Price. JJ should have been playing more off the ball not having to be a scorer AND play PG. Thats above his game. If he just had to run some offense for a few minutes in some games he would be fine, but yeah he isn't a PG he is a combo guard thats more of a SG really in what he can do. Like I said not having another option at PG really hurt this team alot. Yeah they could have tried Shved there, but I really don't know if the result would have been any more helpful than what we got. I would have liked to see him get a shot there though.

[northernhoops [enjin:9491634]]

Rondos stats at Ricky's age
.505 FG% .313 3P% .642 FT% 5.2 REB 8.2 AST 1.9 STL 2.6 TO 11.9 PTS
Ricky's
.380 FG %. .333 3P% .799 FT % 4.2 REb 8.6 AST 2.4 STL 2.6 TO 9.4 PTS

Comparable players in my mind. Take what you will from the stats

[Lipoli390]

A few thoughts:

- He is not the exact same player this year as his prior two years. In fact, he has slowly improved since his rookie campaign. He is the same player stylistically, but he's more productive and efficient than his first two seasons.

- Assists per game have as much to do with the offensive system as it does with the PG's ability to make plays. Ricky is averaging a career high in assists despite playing in a system that runs a lot of plays through Kevin Love in the high post (which is also why Love has pretty much doubled his career assist rate this year). And it doesn't take advanced stats to realize that Rubio is one of the elite passers in the game today. Just watch him.

- There are a lot of different metrics out there that try to isolate a single player's impact on team defense. Ricky does very well in these. For example, he's tied for 3rd among starting PGs in the Defensive Rating stat. He's 2nd among all PGs in the Defensive RPM stat (a new advanced stat recently unveiled by ESPN). And then if you look at the box score stats of steals and charges taken, he probably creates more turnovers than almost any other PG in the NBA. The bottom line is that it's fair to say that Rubio is an elite defender. He may not always be the best pure one-on-one defender, but if you look at his overall impact on a team defense, he's elite.

- There is no one formula for winning an NBA title. We've seen a number of teams do it over the years without a great offensive PG.

All of that being said, I agree with Tim that we should wait another year before negotiating a contract extension. I don't believe Rubio is an upper echelon PG just yet, but he has shown gradual improvement through his first three years and hopefully that trend continues.

I agree. Ill still contend that the front office STILL hasn't built a proper team around ricky's skills. Finding a 3 point shooter that can shoot 40% or another 35+% high usage 3 point shooter will make those assists numbers go up. I think his shooting style is one where he's just not going to be a good jump shooter, but improving around the rim, where he can get to as good as anyone, will make all the difference

I agree completely.

[whatdtcom [enjin:6685945]]

I'm 100% sold on Ricky. I'd give him the max way before an injury prone guy. If everyone here had the chance to see Ricky up close, you'd see how passionate the guy is and how genuinely frustrated he is with losing. You can't buy that!

The front office HAS built a team around him---it's just that we've been injuried the vast majority of the time. We went after and got shooters----Martin, Chase, even Hummel---these guys are all shooters! At some point, those guys have to make their shots in order for Ricky to get his assists---which is not a true measure of his value. Ricky disrupts so much and for as much the Dieng changes shots around the rim with his mere presences----Ricky does the same thing on the perimeter.

I would not blow this team up just yet. We lost an un-godly number of close games within the 3-4 points range. We win some of these game and we would be right in the thick of the PO race! You guys realize that the 6-8 seeds are within one game at 49-50 wins?!? Take in consideration of how many double digit leads that we've blown and we seriously would be right in there! We have had a +9 games from year over year. Portland is a +20 from last year. Do you think they wanted to blowup their team last off season?

The Wolves just need to believe in themselves and execute---but Misty', I'll give you one----we do need a backup point.

[Monster]

I'm 100% sold on Ricky. I'd give him the max way before an injury prone guy. If everyone here had the chance to see Ricky up close, you'd see how passionate the guy is and how genuinely frustrated he is with losing. You can't buy that!

The front office HAS built a team around him---it's just that we've been injuried the vast majority of the time. We went after and got shooters----Martin, Chase, even Hummel---these guys are all shooters! At some point, those guys have to make their shots in order for Ricky to get his assists---which is not a true measure of his value. Ricky disrupts so much and for as much the Dieng changes shots around the rim with his mere presences----Ricky does the same thing on the perimeter.

I would not blow this team up just yet. We lost an un-godly number of close games within the 3-4 points range. We win some of these game and we would be right in the thick of the PO race! You guys realize that the 6-8 seeds are within one game at 49-50 wins?!? Take in consideration of how many double digit leads that we've blown and we seriously would be right in there! We have had a +9 games from year over year. Portland is a +20 from last year. Do you think they wanted to blowup their team last off season?

The Wolves just need to believe in themselves and execute---but Misty', I'll give you one----we do need a backup point.

This is a pretty good post really to keep things in perspective. I think pretty much everyone thinks for this team to be a contender it needs another REALLY good player but this team could get on the right track with some health and some quality moves to have better depth. a legit backup PG a solid rookie draft pick wing and one other crafty signing or move to bring in the right guy can make a huge difference. Look at how the Pacers did it a couple years ago with a draft a trade a signing a or 2 and Granger who was their best player was hardly part of their turnaround.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Age: 23
Per 36:

Kidd: 11.0 pts, 9.1 ast, 4.6 reb, 2.3 stl, 0.4 blk, .498 TS%
Rubio: 10.7 pts, 9.6 ast, 4.7 reb, 2.6 stl, 0.2 blk, .491 TS%

Just saying...

[kms789 [enjin:6694798]]

Age: 23
Per 36:

Kidd: 11.0 pts, 9.1 ast, 4.6 reb, 2.3 stl, 0.4 blk, .498 TS%
Rubio: 10.7 pts, 9.6 ast, 4.7 reb, 2.6 stl, 0.2 blk, .491 TS%

Just saying...

Another similarity is that those Dallas teams, where Kidd was so bad at scoring, never came close to making the playoffs.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Age: 23
Per 36:

Kidd: 11.0 pts, 9.1 ast, 4.6 reb, 2.3 stl, 0.4 blk, .498 TS%
Rubio: 10.7 pts, 9.6 ast, 4.7 reb, 2.6 stl, 0.2 blk, .491 TS%

Just saying...

Good comparison. Let's not over-rate Kidd though. While he was a unique and effective point guard, I would not put him in the pantheon of guys like Chris Paul, John Stockton, and Magic Johnson. He was a very good PG that managed to stay effective for many years. His durability is as impressive as his actual accomplishments on the court.