Minnesota Sports Forum

Let's be honest about any coach utilizing Rubio...many coaches haven't used that type of PG for over 10 years. Teams have moved guys that whereby good enough shooters or scorers for their liking in favor of a scoring type PG for a more balanced attack. And that was before this new style of basketball. Many coaches weren't willing to just give a PG the ball and let him do his thing. So Thibs (and to some extent Rubio himself) taking a while to find the balance. Rubio is a very unique player. The way he is playing right now is pretty impressive because of what he is doing as a scorer. What if some of what Thibs did early on influenced Rubio to be a better scorer?

The bottom line is this team has been playing crazy good defense lately and playing well overall. Rubio said himself this may be the best this team has played since he joined the franchise. Let's see how this team finishes the season. It seems like the team started out slow and picked up steam and has continued to do so except a few games slump after Lavine got hurt.

longstrangetrip wrote:I give POBO Thibs a B, and Coach Thibs a C. I also admired the restraint he showed during the crazy offseason, and admired the guys he picked up at bargain prices. (I just didn't think he picked them up to have them languish on the bench). But I have disagreed with so many of his coaching decisions, and also think that some of his poor decisions were instrumental in the horrible start that tanked this season early. And I still think his most brilliant coaching moves have come when injuries or something else have forced his hand...he seldom seems to do something that makes me say "OK, that was brilliant".

Even though he is putting Wig at the point (and Ricky in the corner) less frequently than he was when we were losing 2 of every three games, he still does it more than I would like...last night he finished two quarters with a Wig isolation. My son asked me a good question: "If Thibs thinks Wig running the point is a good strategy, why only do it at the end of quarters? Do it the whole game if it's our best offensive set, or don't do it at all." I remain in the "don't do it at all" camp.

So why does Thibs rate a C if I think his rotations, game time decision making skills, and time out management are all substandard? Because I think he gets credit for the enormous improvement this team has shown on defense the past couple weeks, and especially for the improvement we have seen in Belly and Bazz. Thibs came here with a great defensive rep, and he's starting to live up to it.

LST, we've been in opposite corners of this Wiggins as initiator debate all season. I relish the opportunities Wig gets to run the PnR. It's been effective, it's exciting, and it's difficult for the opponent to guard. Wig needs to become a better facilitator out of it but I think he's improving. But it's good that us fans don't all see the game the same way. It makes for healthy debate and fun conversation.

Yeah, I don't think there is anything masterful about balancing development and winning. But we are seeing the fruits of what Thibs has been preaching starting to pay off, namely, defense.

A couple weeks ago we were seeing comments like "Towns is the worst defensive big in the league". But something has turned on for him because his defensive lapses have been much less noticeable. And the same can be said for Wiggins -- he seems much more engaged into other aspects of the game besides scoring. Even Rubio's penchant for scoring is something that has only begun to blossom in the last couple of weeks.

Thibs and his staff deserve kudos for the growth we are seeing from the players individually and their ability to work together as a team on both ends of the court.

60WinTim wrote:Yeah, I don't think there is anything masterful about balancing development and winning. But we are seeing the fruits of what Thibs has been preaching starting to pay off, namely, defense.

A couple weeks ago we were seeing comments like "Towns is the worst defensive big in the league". But something has turned on for him because his defensive lapses have been much less noticeable. And the same can be said for Wiggins -- he seems much more engaged into other aspects of the game besides scoring. Even Rubio's penchant for scoring is something that has only begun to blossom in the last couple of weeks.

Thibs and his staff deserve kudos for the growth we are seeing from the players individually and their ability to work together as a team on both ends of the court.

Jon K has said this whole season there is too much talent on the roster and on the coaching staff for things not to come together at some point. How many people would have buried Belly on the bench? Thibs has played the guy consistent minutes all season and the guy has his issues but he does a lot of good things and has been playing better the last stretch.

What most people were worried about was Thibs wouldbne all in wearing things out and sorta cap out early. It's sorta been the opposite. H has developed and built for the future. It may pay off we won't know. The worst thing is this latest switch that's flipped hasn't happened with Lavine healthy. Some people would say maybe there is something to that but the Wolves have been playing better after that terrible start with Lavine it's not that crazy to think he could have been a part of the turn around as well although it may have looked a little different.

Watching Rubio much of this season and especially the last few weeks reminds me of listening to Flip in the offseason before he took over coaching this team say that what he wanted Rubio to do was focus on his midrange game. People weren't happy with that because of the inefficiency of it etc.

What is one element that has made Rubio a worthwhile scorer this season? His midrange shooting has been pretty accurate all season. Rubio started out on a hot streak playing for Flip tailed off a bit got hurt returned...and then the season was over from him after just 22 games. We never really saw an extended time with him under Flip who loved PGs (look at all that talent he had while he coached the Wolves) and tended to have his PGs utilize that long 2 and midrange shooting. Maybe Flip knew what he was talking about and could have gotten something out of Rubio like we have been seeing lately. We will never know. It's too bad obviously for a number of reasons.

Rubio FG% from 16 feet to < 3 point line:
2014-15: 40%
2015-16: 39%
2016-17: 43.5%

Any 2-point shot that you hit less than 50% on is generally not a good shot, and mid to long 2's have probably the lowest effective FG% league-wide. It's why Houston does everything in their power to avoid them, literally going games where they only take 1 or 2 the entire game. Meanwhile, teams like Minnesota still depend a LOT on 2-point jumpers.

That being said, he's hitting them at a fairly decent rate compared to league average. Carmelo Anthony for example hits them at a 42% rate for his career. Anything in the high 30s or above is very solid.

I still think the most impactful thing he could do is become a good 3-point shooter. I'm not sure he will ever get there, but he's been on the edge of competence with that shot for years now, with a career rate of 31.6%.

Q12543 wrote:Rubio FG% from 16 feet to < 3 point line:
2014-15: 40%
2015-16: 39%
2016-17: 43.5%

Any 2-point shot that you hit less than 50% on is generally not a good shot, and mid to long 2's have probably the lowest effective FG% league-wide. It's why Houston does everything in their power to avoid them, literally going games where they only take 1 or 2 the entire game. Meanwhile, teams like Minnesota still depend a LOT on 2-point jumpers.

That being said, he's hitting them at a fairly decent rate compared to league average. Carmelo Anthony for example hits them at a 42% rate for his career. Anything in the high 30s or above is very solid.

I still think the most impactful thing he could do is become a good 3-point shooter. I'm not sure he will ever get there, but he's been on the edge of competence with that shot for years now, with a career rate of 31.6%.

His 10-16 ft numbers are really good this year at 47%. He is taking a career high percentage of his overall shots from that spot and shooting less of the 16<3 shots than his career average. The guy is shooting over 45% of his 2 point shots after never averaging even 40% in a season and it's like you are complaining about his efficiency in year where he is clearly the most efficient of his career. It's not like he is abondoning the 3 point shot either. He has a career high 3 point rate. He is also taking the most corner 3's of his career and the weird thing he is not hitting those as a high rate as his other 3's. If Rubio was shooting 43% of his shots (assuming he was taking a enough to matter) everyone would be thrilled. He seems to be finding places on the floor he can score points and actually trying to put the damn ball in the bucket and actually succeeding. It's a hell of thing and it's been percolating nearly all season.

If I remember correctly Rubio has always been better shotting 3's from the arch or straight away then the corners. I always thought it was poor offense to put in in the corner for 3's.

Q12543 wrote:

Any 2-point shot that you hit less than 50% on is generally not a good shot, and mid to long 2's have probably the lowest effective FG% league-wide. It's why Houston does everything in their power to avoid them, literally going games where they only take 1 or 2 the entire game. Meanwhile, teams like Minnesota still depend a LOT on 2-point jumpers.

As polarising as it may be, I continue to find this a fascinating debate on quant metrics vs more subjective judgement. I work in finance and love analysing data and hate how subjective most financial analysis is (too much narrative bias in the human mind). But with everything, getting the right balance is always key.

I think one of the key insights required to use quant metrics is to understand their context and how and why they work rather than just taking them at face value.

Rubio is a great example of this. Taking a long 2 may be considered an inefficient shot from a quant perspective, but I think everyone here agrees that Rubio being prepared to take open shots and force the defence to guard him is highly significant to our offence - even if that open shot is a long 2. So why do the numbers tell us that long 2s are bad, but our minds all tell us that Rubio needs to continue to take them? Perhaps it's the dreaded narrative bias I mentioned above, but I think there are a couple of valid reasons for this.

First, it can be the business equivalent of being a 'loss leader'. Offering a customer a free cup of coffee in order to attract them into your store. If you analyse the profit on each free cup of coffee you give away, it's an inefficient business practise. You lose money every time because the coffee cost you a little bit and you didn't make any revenue from the coffee. But it leads to a greater good for the broad business. In the Wolves sense, Rubio missing a mid-range shot is unprofitable in itself. It uses a possession and results in no points. But it gets the defence to guard him and allows other more efficient shots to be more available (brings more customers to the store to purchase more profitable items).

Secondly, many arbitrage opportunities will be closed out pretty quickly when they become apparent. If taking only 3s and layups is more efficient. The defence will focus on this more and make those shots less efficient by applying more pressure at those positions. If we took it to the absolute extreme, and defences allowed any offensive player to take a long 2 at any time without any pressure, the efficiency of the long 2 would increase. Rubio makes 82% of his mid-range shots with absolutely no pressure over his career. I know it's not actually practical that the defence would ever allow long 2s with the time and space of a free throw. It's also not possible for the defence to warp between the keyway and 3 pt line and only guard those spaces. But I'm using this extreme example to illustrate the point.

It's really tough to analyse this sort of thing with advanced stats. We can't know how much extra pressure the defence puts on Rubio when he's shooting mid-range shots, and we don't know how much that actually opens up a more efficient shot for KAT in the key for example. We don't have control samples of data or infinite amounts of data to for different levels of defensive pressure. So we must use our judgement around things like this.

Fascinating stuff Shumway, well done. You raise some good questions.

Let me be clear: When a defender is going so far under the screen or sagging so far off of Rubio that he's practically sharing a box of popcorn with a fan sitting along the baseline, then hell yes, Rubio needs to take that mid-range shot. And that's basically how teams have been guarding him because they know his biggest threat to the defense is his passing ability.

Also, sometimes a mid-range shot is literally all that the defense makes available because either the shot clock is winding down or there simply is no other option. If one makes 40% of his long 2's instead of 30% in these situations, that's a good thing.

I think one of the very real things we saw earlier in the season was when Rubio passed up an open look, he often tried forcing the ball to someone else that was better covered, thus resulting in an even lower percentage play.

My larger point - and it's a hypothesis - is that his improvement as a mid-range shooter is less impactful than if he were, say, an above average 3-point shooter. The very threat of a made 3 by a credible shooter creates more space than the threat of a guy knocking down a 17 footer because the defense went under a screen. Most defenses will live with Rubio taking 2-point jumpers, even if he makes a few.