Minnesota Sports Forum

Speaking of Miami, today's BSPN top headline, "Bosh has no hard feelings towards Lebron."

Oh thank God. Now I can sleep well tonight.

BizarroJerry wrote:Hicks, I'm merely suggesting people could be over analyzing his shooting percentage. Whether his FG % is 33% (4 for 12) or 41% (5 for 12), that's only 1 bucket. I think he'll get stronger at challenging the bigs and getting more FT's. He is obviously much more talented than Chalmers and if he's making others better then we can get our wings to provide the bulk of the scoring. I guess I would rather have Rubio than a guy like Westbrook and I know I'm in the minority here.

It clearly means something come 4th quarter and he's got zero confidence from going 1-8 so far that he passes up wide open shots to give it to a triple teamed Kevin Love

41% is still an awful shooting percentage. It also comes down to the fact that he is awful shooting the ball around the rim. It might only look like a 2 shot difference on paper, but making those 2 shots could be the difference between having to respect him at all or not. That is a huge difference when it comes to the options our offense will have. The only way he can make up for the bad percentage is get to the line more which he doesn't go up strong enough to earn fouls as he bails so quickly that it comes off as a flop.

Ricky does a decent job getting to the line. He has averaged 3.9 FT attempts per game so far in his career. That's better than Rondo's 2.7 average Nash's 2.9 attempts or Curry's 3.3 attempts. But Ricky DOES need to finish better on his drives. His poor finishing is unacceptable and fixable. Just shoring up that one part of his game would push his shooting percentage into the low 40s without any improvement in his mid-range or 3-point shot.

At the end of the day, Ricky's substantial positive impact on the team is undeniable and statistically verifiable in spite of his poor shooting. Great point guards, even good ones, don't grow on trees. So it's up to the Wolves organization to do everything within reason to keep Ricky in a Wolves uniform and surround him with the right mix of talented teammates. I think Flip is doing exactly that by surrounding him with high flying, fast athletic talent like Wiggins, LaVine and Thad Young.

Thanks for posting the 2nd article Tim, I was thinking I saw another one when I clicked. I agree with Lip and everyone who says that we need to keep Ricky, because even without the scoring he has a very positive impact on the floor...and if he ever DOES learn to finish, then it could be huge. Really, given his skill set, he can only get better as a player.

Rubio has a significant flaw being able to score but I'll take that over the other big flaws other incomplete PGs have like not really being passers or sucking on defense. He needs to get better as a scorer though we all know that. I believe he will improve enough there but he needs to prove it.

On Ricky's ability to draw fouls a couple thoughts. First of all He draws a fair amount of fouls out on the perimeter similar to what John Stockton used to do. Rubio has an uncanny way of drawing fouls on him out there. I remember in the olympics he was doing that to team USA making them look absolutely silly. In addition to that the fact that he draws fouls on guys despite being a poor scoring really shows how advanced he is as a basketball player. Its so weird how he can be so good at so much of what is needed to be really good but he doesn't do well at scoring.

Its been said here numerous times but I think Flip is going to really help Rubio. He is going to push and enable Rubio to do his thing give him freedom and confidence and demand he lead. I think that's going to help Rubio with his scoring some also. It doesn't hurt that he has some guys that should fit well around himn too. Love fit plenty well with Rubio too though but if one other guy besides Martin and Williams can be legit threats from the outside Rubio should have some pretty good targets to get the ball too. I'm hoping for the best I really like Rubio and his game a lot and I want him to succeed.