CoolBreeze44 wrote:Until Giannis gets more consistent on his jump shot, I'm sorry but you can't count him among the top 5 players in the league.
I think I actually Agee with what you are saying. Not being in the top 5 in the NBA isn't the worst thing. He turned 23 in December and is putting up Some pretty impressive numbers regardless of age. I think there are times he lacks consistency in general but looking at the stats are pretty impressive. The NBA is gonna be fun to watch the next 10+ years with some of these guys.
thedoper wrote:Whatever is going on with Rubio it has been a statistical anomaly, he had a career year no doubt. Would have been nice is he played anywhere near this level for longer than 20 games while he was a Timberwolf. I hope he can keep it up, maybe we will add him to the long list of players that forget how to score when they come play for us. Maybe he has finally turned the corner?
Ricky is the same player efficiency wise as he was with the wolves. Which has always been good enough in my eyes.
Career high by a huge margin in eFG with a 23% usage. His scoring contribution has never been close to this. I'm glad for Ricky but I'm not willing to rewrite history because he's shooting and making them. He was "efficient" for us because he stopped shooting and missing.
Ricky always had more scorers around him in Minnesota than in Utah. He's had Pek, Love, Martin, KAT, Wig, and LaVine. In Utah he has Mitchell and that's about it in terms of above average shot creators. That being said, he did start scoring the ball for us once Thibs realized that Point Wiggins and Point LaVine wasn't working very well (I'm referring to last season) and he put the ball in Ricky's hands a lot more often.
My larger point is that some folks argued vehemently that he was the common thread in all of our losing years and all those close games were lost because of him or that he could never succeed at playoff basketball. While I don't think Ricky is more than an average starting PG, he's certainly good enough to start on a winning, playoff-caliber team.
thedoper wrote:Whatever is going on with Rubio it has been a statistical anomaly, he had a career year no doubt. Would have been nice is he played anywhere near this level for longer than 20 games while he was a Timberwolf. I hope he can keep it up, maybe we will add him to the long list of players that forget how to score when they come play for us. Maybe he has finally turned the corner?
Ricky is the same player efficiency wise as he was with the wolves. Which has always been good enough in my eyes.
Career high by a huge margin in eFG with a 23% usage. His scoring contribution has never been close to this. I'm glad for Ricky but I'm not willing to rewrite history because he's shooting and making them. He was "efficient" for us because he stopped shooting and missing.
Ricky always had more scorers around him in Minnesota than in Utah. He's had Pek, Love, Martin, KAT, Wig, and LaVine. In Utah he has Mitchell and that's about it in terms of above average shot creators. That being said, he did start scoring the ball for us once Thibs realized that Point Wiggins and Point LaVine wasn't working very well (I'm referring to last season) and he put the ball in Ricky's hands a lot more often.
My larger point is that some folks argued vehemently that he was the common thread in all of our losing years and all those close games were lost because of him or that he could never succeed at playoff basketball. While I don't think Ricky is more than an average starting PG, he's certainly good enough to start on a winning, playoff-caliber team.
He had points of high usage with really horrible scoring numbers too ( see his Sophmore year). There were Adelman years where the ball was "in his hands" and he couldn't score. It was never Thibs taking the shots, and isn't the only instance in his career he didn't help the offense with his scoring. He's always been streaky from what I can see. Which is why 3 games in the playoffs won't really prove anything anything in my mind. I think everyone agreed that Ricky is average. Sometimes that can be an asset (games 2 and 3 vs OKC) and sometimes that can be a liability (game 1). If he was my starter I'd be nervous if his usage averaged over 20 but the Jazz found a way to make it work. I still think his ideal role on a championship caliber team is manning a second unit, but I'm glad to see him playing some good ball for now.
thedoper wrote:Whatever is going on with Rubio it has been a statistical anomaly, he had a career year no doubt. Would have been nice is he played anywhere near this level for longer than 20 games while he was a Timberwolf. I hope he can keep it up, maybe we will add him to the long list of players that forget how to score when they come play for us. Maybe he has finally turned the corner?
Ricky is the same player efficiency wise as he was with the wolves. Which has always been good enough in my eyes.
Career high by a huge margin in eFG with a 23% usage. His scoring contribution has never been close to this. I'm glad for Ricky but I'm not willing to rewrite history because he's shooting and making them. He was "efficient" for us because he stopped shooting and missing.
Ricky always had more scorers around him in Minnesota than in Utah. He's had Pek, Love, Martin, KAT, Wig, and LaVine. In Utah he has Mitchell and that's about it in terms of above average shot creators. That being said, he did start scoring the ball for us once Thibs realized that Point Wiggins and Point LaVine wasn't working very well (I'm referring to last season) and he put the ball in Ricky's hands a lot more often.
My larger point is that some folks argued vehemently that he was the common thread in all of our losing years and all those close games were lost because of him or that he could never succeed at playoff basketball. While I don't think Ricky is more than an average starting PG, he's certainly good enough to start on a winning, playoff-caliber team.
He had points of high usage with really horrible scoring numbers too ( see his Sophmore year). There were Adelman years where the ball was "in his hands" and he couldn't score. It was never Thibs taking the shots, and isn't the only instance in his career he didn't help the offense with his scoring. He's always been streaky from what I can see. Which is why 3 games in the playoffs won't really prove anything anything in my mind. I think everyone agreed that Ricky is average. Sometimes that can be an asset (games 2 and 3 vs OKC) and sometimes that can be a liability (game 1). If he was my starter I'd be nervous if his usage averaged over 20 but the Jazz found a way to make it work. I still think his ideal role on a championship caliber team is manning a second unit, but I'm glad to see him playing some good ball for now.
True, his early years he was very inefficient as a scorer and preferred to get Kevin Love and Nikola Pekovic big contracts by getting them the ball in great scoring position! But starting about three season ago, he began improving his 2-point jumper and his eFG% has been going up every season ever since. He's at least passable now and teams that ignore him or play way off of him are doing so with a risk
Q12543 wrote:Cleveland is the one team that plays a more stagnant brand of isolation ball than us. Wow. And along those lines, boy, do they miss Kyrie.
The Pacers hurt themselves down the stretch playing isolation themselves honestly they could have kept a some of their bench guys in and I think they would have been better off.
thedoper wrote:Whatever is going on with Rubio it has been a statistical anomaly, he had a career year no doubt. Would have been nice is he played anywhere near this level for longer than 20 games while he was a Timberwolf. I hope he can keep it up, maybe we will add him to the long list of players that forget how to score when they come play for us. Maybe he has finally turned the corner?
Ricky is the same player efficiency wise as he was with the wolves. Which has always been good enough in my eyes.
Career high by a huge margin in eFG with a 23% usage. His scoring contribution has never been close to this. I'm glad for Ricky but I'm not willing to rewrite history because he's shooting and making them. He was "efficient" for us because he stopped shooting and missing.
Ricky always had more scorers around him in Minnesota than in Utah. He's had Pek, Love, Martin, KAT, Wig, and LaVine. In Utah he has Mitchell and that's about it in terms of above average shot creators. That being said, he did start scoring the ball for us once Thibs realized that Point Wiggins and Point LaVine wasn't working very well (I'm referring to last season) and he put the ball in Ricky's hands a lot more often.
My larger point is that some folks argued vehemently that he was the common thread in all of our losing years and all those close games were lost because of him or that he could never succeed at playoff basketball. While I don't think Ricky is more than an average starting PG, he's certainly good enough to start on a winning, playoff-caliber team.
He had points of high usage with really horrible scoring numbers too ( see his Sophmore year). There were Adelman years where the ball was "in his hands" and he couldn't score. It was never Thibs taking the shots, and isn't the only instance in his career he didn't help the offense with his scoring. He's always been streaky from what I can see. Which is why 3 games in the playoffs won't really prove anything anything in my mind. I think everyone agreed that Ricky is average. Sometimes that can be an asset (games 2 and 3 vs OKC) and sometimes that can be a liability (game 1). If he was my starter I'd be nervous if his usage averaged over 20 but the Jazz found a way to make it work. I still think his ideal role on a championship caliber team is manning a second unit, but I'm glad to see him playing some good ball for now.
True, his early years he was very inefficient as a scorer and preferred to get Kevin Love and Nikola Pekovic big contracts by getting them the ball in great scoring position! But starting about three season ago, he began improving his 2-point jumper and his eFG% has been going up every season ever since. He's at least passable now and teams that ignore him or play way off of him are doing so with a risk
I said months ago I thought that Utah was the situation to see if Rubio could be more than just the caretaker type he has been since pretty much a teenager playing professionally. In the playoffs his usuage rate is 28 only Mitchell amping the starters is higher. The next highest starter is 15.5. Some bench players are high usage guys but the Jazz need Rubio to do a lot and even score the basket all. They have scored over 100 points in every playoff game so far and that's no small thing with some teams struggling to score that many points in some of these games. Putting up 20-8-8 innthe playoffs is pretty good for almost anyone and Rubio is doing well enough...at worst. Can he keep it up? Does he have to? Idk it's working out for him there. Good for him. He has proved the doubters wrong to some extent this year. Not overwhelmingly but he overall even though it was streaky he didn't regress.
This NBA season may have had the most parody of any I can remember. The Pacers are a legit threat to take down the Cavs and are a pretty good team that was supposed to be innthe lottery. Utah lost their best player and ended up with only 3 less loses and is looking like they might beat the sorta superteam of OKC. Pelicans came out of nowhere and swept a good team in the playoffs. This league isn't perfect but it's pretty fun.
He's played great so hats off to him. Before you just credit him for doing this all playoffs long though you should keep in mind that even in MN he had Westbrook's number. He's a great matchup on the hero baller because he's big enough that Russ can't bully him on the court and Russ is allergic to defense which let's Ricky operate with no resistance of any kind. Ricky won that matchup frequently for us so I'm not as shocked at what he's done so far. If he does it again next round I'll just be wrong and have to wear that one.
Sorry Khans... but the numbers don't back that up... at all.
It reminds me of this group's first every Westbrook/Rubio debate... all the way back in 2011. Rubio had 6/5/6 and Westbrook had 28/6/6 in a win... and more people were claiming that Rubio was the better long-term bet.
[Note: Check out those games... I have Rubio winning that matchup only 4 times out 17 games...?]
CoolBreeze44 wrote:Until Giannis gets more consistent on his jump shot, I'm sorry but you can't count him among the top 5 players in the league.
I think I actually Agee with what you are saying. Not being in the top 5 in the NBA isn't the worst thing. He turned 23 in December and is putting up Some pretty impressive numbers regardless of age. I think there are times he lacks consistency in general but looking at the stats are pretty impressive. The NBA is gonna be fun to watch the next 10+ years with some of these guys.
It's interesting that two of the most promising young players in the game struggle to shoot from distance.
Giannis.
Ben Simmons.
They are SO GOOD at still getting their shots from elsewhere, and shots for others, that it doesn't really hurt them as much as we might think. Personally, I think Giannis is right on the cusp of Top 5 players already. And Simmons could get there, too.
Part of it is because both are two-way monsters. They are very good defensive players who can guard multiple positions.
...and Simmons has the absolutely perfect back court mate in JJ Reddick. He stretches the floor big time AND he moves really well off the ball. I know he is signed for only one year, but I have to believe Philly tries to hold onto him. He has been just the perfect fit.
