Minnesota Sports Forum

We'll see how Ricky does when his confidence takes a hit at some point in the future. Right now based on his career these numbers are purely due to confidence. His mechanics didn't magically change mid-season. He's feeling it right now so we'll how long it lasts and more importantly if he is able to bounce quickly back to this form when he has an off-night or a couple in a row. You also have to factor in if this can continue once defenses start game planning to stop it. Ricky hasn't been someone you really had to guard closely before. Now that he is hitting that level it's a wait and see to how he responds to the new attention he'll get as well as if he can bounce back to form quickly if the new attention knocks him off his game on occasion. It's certainly promising, but I need to see more than 2 months of this to believe it's long-term. It's hard for 2 months to be the new norm when you are staring at years of evidence to the contrary prior.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:I'm just going to throw this out there. Let's pump the breaks slightly on Ricky's new found offensive game. It's not unprecedented for a player to go through a two month shooting and scoring binge before regressing to his mean. Think Jeremy Lin for example. For a couple months he was the best point guard in the NBA when he was with the Knicks.

Now do I think Ricky can continue to be an improved offensive player? Certainly. I expect his 3 point shooting percentages to advance above his career averages. He may even continue to finish better around the rim. But don't be completely shocked if you see some regression in his offensive effectiveness, particularly if teams start to pay more attention to him defensively. If he can do what he's been doing since the all star break for 6 months, I'd be more inclined to accept this as the norm. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts, and be somewhat confident he can be a bigger threat going forward.

I agree with this and there is really nothing controversial here.

All players go through peaks and valleys. Last year in the 28 games after the all-star break Rubio shot 40% from the field, 37% from 3, and 88% from the line. He had a TS% of 57%, which is really good. Now he only averaged 11 PPG, but he kept defenses honest and got LaVine, Wiggins, and KAT their shots. Our starting 5 was one of the most potent offenses in the league during that stretch.

The hope with Rubio is that his peaks are higher and his valleys are not quite as low. And to me that is what has happened over the past two seasons. This isn't some trend that just started a few weeks ago.

So no, I don't believe we are seeing some "new normal" here, where suddenly he's going to be a 45/40/90 type guy from the field averaging 18PPG. I expect him to eventually settle back into a 10-12PPG scorer with OK-ish shooting percentages and outstanding free throw percentages. And that's just fine with me.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:It's ALWAYS the coaches fault when players play bad.
The players get ALL the credit when they play well.

While I used to think there was some gray area/context/and some semblance of truth to both statements, I'm gonna go with the guy who has unabashedly trumped for Ricky constantly without fail to the point of having his name in his online username.

He seems like an objective type of poster I should take seriously.

I pretty much agree with everything you said there and like you said there is some gray area to boht and context needs to be applied.

Why does thibs get all the blame when we lose to the Lakers (what shouldn't happen) and he gets no credit (or at least in the form) when we beat the Lakers last night.

First off I am very happy for Ricky, he is playing the best ball of his life and it is awesome to see because from the outside looking in it seems like he is just a great guy and I do want him to succeed. But the big thing is, is this an upswing that goes back to the mean from what we have seen from the last 6 years or is this for real.

Like look at this season through the lens of this forum:

Andrew Wiggins the first 10ish games, OMG he has turned the corner, we have a superstar and he is finally coming around. The next chunk of games, OMG same old wiggins, just doesn't bring it everynight he will never live up to potential. Right after the all star break, OMG Wiggins has finally clicked with thibs and he is reaching his star potential. Right now: OMG same old wiggins, all he is a scorer.

Zach Lavine, early in the year there was a forum who is the better prospect/player Lavine or Wiggins, and there was actual discussion. Then Zach got hurt, came back played bad, and now he was terrible, at best he is a 6th man. We have had a similar recored from the Chi game to when he tore his ACL to now. So are the wolves better/no difference with or with out Lavine, or did players step up (belly, bazz, tyus, rubio, wiggins) when Lavine went down and would we have seen the similar up tick in those players games if Lavine was still here?

Shabazz was garbage, to he can't miss a 3 and everyone wanted him back, to now he can't hit anything and everyone I think for the most part is fine to see him go.

Now Rubio, is having a great month and a half, now is this an uptick or is it for real. That I do not know, but I hope this uptick does not change the plans for the wolves if they believe there is an improvement to be made at PG.

I am very happy for Ricky this is the player we have all dreamed he would be come but if this is just an uptick we are in a similar spot as we have been the last 6 years can you win in the NBA if you have a guy on the court who is not a threat to score. We have had 4 coaches, 2 different eras of wolves teams that have yet to win with the non scoring Ricky, so I am cautiously optimistic this could hopefully be the turnaround. (YAY HOPE FOR THE WOLVES!!!!)

Someone brought up work with Ryan Saunders. Remember this was the guy that a. I bet of guards have praised the guy bigtime. John Wall was one. I remember Andre Miller was a big fan. I agree Rubio is playing with confidence but some of his play looks like it's been worked on especially when it comes to plays where he finishes around the rim. He has better footwork and what he does with his upper body looks like a legit basketball player instead of a kid. Some credit there has to go to Rubio for working hard and to whoever helped him.

Rubio isn't gonna keep putting up 20 point games here and there etc like he has I agree he is likely to cool off but like Cool said I think there is enough optimism that he is gonna be better than his career numbers. How much better? Idk

I've mentioned it before but Flip wanted Rubio to be more aggressive scoring the ball even if it was encouraging that midrange shot. Rubio didn't really get to play under Saunders long enough to see if Flip who is a very legit PG whisperer to make a difference. On the other hand he did play for Sam who had every kind of PG you can think of in Toronto have success. He took the fewest shots per game of his career but he did also get to the line at a higher rate than his career rate. So is Thibs the magical coach to get Rubio to be aggressive? Did something sort of go in Rubio's brain? Did being healthy final for an entire offseason and therefore hard work finally pay off? It's probably some of all of that and as i mentioned earlier in the season Rubio had been hitting a higher percentage of 2 point shots so this whole more efficient shooting thing has sort of been building for a while in this season.

Regardless whatever the reason things are going great with Rubio now. We don't know for sure what parts of the journey to get here were positive and which ones were keeping him from reaching this point. I think one thing that keeps being underestimated is how Layden and Thibs have valued the guy. They were never giving him away and the way he has played the last few weeks the desire to let him go has to be waning.

I actually agree with the sentiment bloop expresses in his headline. Ricky's resurgence has been remarkable, and the most significant variable from prior years is the coach, so Thibs needs to be credited here. Of course this is only conjecture, but my guess is that Thibs has pushed Ricky to be more aggressive on offense than any of his previous coaches, and the results have been terrific.

But while I agree with Bloop's conclusion, I don't agree that putting Ricky in the corner the first quarter of the season was the reason for his eventual improvement, or even a good move. I think it was a disaster, and destroyed Ricky's confidence. I give some credit to Thibs for recognizing his early season coaching futility and changing his approach toward Ricky, but a better coach never would have misused him so badly in the first place.

And just like I think we have to credit Thibs for whatever he has done to get more out of Ricky than any other coach, we also have to criticize him for the lack of improvement (and in some cases, regression) this team has experienced this year.

But this thread is about Thibs and Ricky, and I agree he has done a good job coaching him the last half of the season...in fact, I would call it his most important contribution in his initial year.

longstrangetrip wrote:I actually agree with the sentiment bloop expresses in his headline. Ricky's resurgence has been remarkable, and the most significant variable from prior years is the coach, so Thibs needs to be credited here. Of course this is only conjecture, but my guess is that Thibs has pushed Ricky to be more aggressive on offense than any of his previous coaches, and the results have been terrific.

But while I agree with Bloop's conclusion, I don't agree that putting Ricky in the corner the first quarter of the season was the reason for his eventual improvement, or even a good move. I think it was a disaster, and destroyed Ricky's confidence. I give some credit to Thibs for recognizing his early season coaching futility and changing his approach toward Ricky, but a better coach never would have misused him so badly in the first place.

And just like I think we have to credit Thibs for whatever he has done to get more out of Ricky than any other coach, we also have to criticize him for the lack of improvement (and in some cases, regression) this team has experienced this year.

But this thread is about Thibs and Ricky, and I agree he has done a good job coaching him the last half of the season...in fact, I would call it his most important contribution in his initial year.

I agree LST. Bloop is trying to make it sound like Thibs' initial strategy with Rubio was a pre-mediated scheme to eventually motivate him to becoming a scoring PG. I think that is just silly.

Credit Thibs for adjusting his strategy and giving Rubio a vote of confidence, but in hindsight, we would have been better off if Thibs had started the year that way! Remember, Ricky was coming off a career year the season prior and that same 5-man unit was an offensive force in the last 25 games.

You can't have it both ways. Ricky played like absolute dogshit in the beginning of the season on both sides of the ball. Now he's playing great. Trying to decide who is responsible for what is insane. He needed to be more agressive and he's doing that now. Good for the player and coach, wish they both would have figured it out earlier.

thedoper wrote:You can't have it both ways. Ricky played like absolute dogshit in the beginning of the season on both sides of the ball. Now he's playing great. Trying to decide who is responsible for what is insane. He needed to be more agressive and he's doing that now. Good for the player and coach, wish they both would have figured it out earlier.

He had three mouths to feed in LaVine, Wiggins, and KAT plus Thibs took the ball out of his hands. This can be proven statistically. While certainly Ricky deserves some blame, anyone that is a professional in any capacity knows how important it is to be put in a position to leverage your greatest strengths. When a coach basically uses you in a way that is antithetical to the skills you possess, it's going to have an impact. So yes, Thibs does deserve some of the blame.

How much has his trade value went up over the last few months?

bleedspeed177 wrote:How much has his trade value went up over the last few months?

A lot because his value to this team keeps going up. If the Wolves weren't willing to just give him away before Rubio has been playing well so...what incentive do they have to deal him? Teams are gonna have to bring something good to the table or they will just keep him. With a very strong PG draft I don't think that's going to happen. I'll honestly be kinda surprised if Rubio isn't on the Wolves roster opening night.