Minnesota Sports Forum

thedoper wrote:Every year we dream Ricky will be doing nothing but shooting in his offseason, instead we watched him play some of his worst ball yet. I am a Rubio supporter but you can't call this summer anything but pathetic and completely wasted. If he's improved in his time in the NBA I don't see it.

I disagree with this take. You can see how important Ricky is to the Spanish national team when Ricky played good in the tournament Spain won easily. When Ricky played bad like he did today Spain lost. I don't call this offseason a waste at all he is playing in competitive basketball, I mean it is better than Lavine playing in the Drew League (I am not taking a shot Lavine playing in the League). Just because we see Lavine/Wiggins working out and posting videos doesn't mean ricky is not working just as hard and he is getting competitive action to boot. Like has the offseasons of Butler/Batum/Valuncunis/Green/Barnes been a waste this summer? Ricky has improved as an NBA player and Pork is right he won't live up to the franchise changing expectations that Ricky had when we drafted him or after his rookie year but he is still a solid NBA point guard. Also this is a huge year for Ricky I think we are going to find out can Ricky be "that" point guard to lead a upper/middle tier NBA team. I think over anything having Ricky play in a NBA playoff is more important than any other player on the roster so we can see if he will be a liability in those situations or can he be a starting NBA playoff point guard. Also I think one thing will be interesting this season is to see if Ricky is more aggressive defensively this season because of the depth at PG we are hoping we have this upcoming season.

PS: Sorry for so many random thoughts on Ricky.

kekgeek1 wrote:

thedoper wrote:Every year we dream Ricky will be doing nothing but shooting in his offseason, instead we watched him play some of his worst ball yet. I am a Rubio supporter but you can't call this summer anything but pathetic and completely wasted. If he's improved in his time in the NBA I don't see it.

I disagree with this take. You can see how important Ricky is to the Spanish national team when Ricky played good in the tournament Spain won easily. When Ricky played bad like he did today Spain lost. I don't call this offseason a waste at all he is playing in competitive basketball, I mean it is better than Lavine playing in the Drew League (I am not taking a shot Lavine playing in the League). Just because we see Lavine/Wiggins working out and posting videos doesn't mean ricky is not working just as hard and he is getting competitive action to boot. Like has the offseasons of Butler/Batum/Valuncunis/Green/Barnes been a waste this summer? Ricky has improved as an NBA player and Pork is right he won't live up to the franchise changing expectations that Ricky had when we drafted him or after his rookie year but he is still a solid NBA point guard. Also this is a huge year for Ricky I think we are going to find out can Ricky be "that" point guard to lead a upper/middle tier NBA team. I think over anything having Ricky play in a NBA playoff is more important than any other player on the roster so we can see if he will be a liability in those situations or can he be a starting NBA playoff point guard. Also I think one thing will be interesting this season is to see if Ricky is more aggressive defensively this season because of the depth at PG we are hoping we have this upcoming season.

PS: Sorry for so many random thoughts on Ricky.

I think its crazy that people use his bad games to illustrate his value during his "good games". I mean one game he had 5 rebounds 5 assists and a couple points? Those numbers are meh, a PG should fall into 5 assts every game. Any player that plays relatively well ( or averge as those numbers indicate) in a game is going to be helping his team more than hurting it, there's nothing profound about that. But when you have more bad games than good you are a below average player in my book.

PorkChop wrote:I think its crazy that people use his bad games to illustrate his value during his "good games". I mean one game he had 5 rebounds 5 assists and a couple points? Those numbers are meh, a PG should fall into 5 assts every game. Any player that plays relatively well ( or averge as those numbers indicate) in a game is going to be helping his team more than hurting it, there's nothing profound about that. But when you have more bad games than good you are a below average player in my book.

Not to defend Rubio, but I'd agree that in the NBA any starting PG should "fall into 5 assists every game", but in international ball assists are much harder to come by. In international and european play you damn near have to score the ball for the guy to get an assist.

That said, back to our regularly scheduled Rubio bashing!

:thumb:

I think all these olympics further did was show that Ricky can't be relied on to be a top 2-3 player on your team carrying you to wins. That lines up with his career here so far. We've had to rely on the play of others to put us over the top for the few wins we do have over the last few years. Ricky is a support piece. If our young guys improve enough to make him the 4-5-6th best player on our team we'll probably be fine. But if he's still top 2-3 again next year we'll probably be on the outside looking in for the playoffs.

Is anyone else tired of the Rubio debate? Nothing new has been said for years. I sure hope the Wolves can make the playoffs so we have something new to work with here.

I am phenom. He's here to stay and considering what Mike Conley got, I'm happy we have him.

I think Jon K makes a good point about Rubio's game just isn't the best for the International game. I actually think the whole Spanish team might be better playing the more open NBA game. I can't think of any of those guys that wouldn't be more interesting playing a more open type of game. I didn't see any of the games bit I know a decent amount of those players. Also does anyone have the stats of what Pau put up in the Olympics this year? It had to be a pretty impressive line.

Edit: Just to be clear neither Jon K or I let Rubio off the hook for not playing well at times in the olympics.

TheSP wrote:

PorkChop wrote:I think its crazy that people use his bad games to illustrate his value during his "good games". I mean one game he had 5 rebounds 5 assists and a couple points? Those numbers are meh, a PG should fall into 5 assts every game. Any player that plays relatively well ( or averge as those numbers indicate) in a game is going to be helping his team more than hurting it, there's nothing profound about that. But when you have more bad games than good you are a below average player in my book.

Not to defend Rubio, but I'd agree that in the NBA any starting PG should "fall into 5 assists every game", but in international ball assists are much harder to come by. In international and european play you damn near have to score the ball for the guy to get an assist.

That said, back to our regularly scheduled Rubio bashing!

:thumb:

To be fair, it's right back to Rubio apologies, too. Can't have one without the other.

For example, pointing to Rubio's decent but not awe-inspiring performances in wins to show his importance to Spain?

So when he plays basically average ball for 1/2 a game and doesn't play like complete horseshit... Spain wins. "See. Rubio is super good and important."

For the (x) year, I'm looking forward to another season with Rubio at the helm for the Wolves. Once again, there are enough changes around him to hint at this being the year we really find out more about his ultimate ceiling in the NBA... blah blah blah blah.

It'll be more of the same. He'll do some things insanely well. And other things at a high school level. And everything will balance out to him being a very polarizing player and about an average NBA PG. At least, we don't know yet if that's good enough for Thibs... or if he wants more scoring out of the position. That will be interesting to see. And it's why I don't expect Rubio threads to stop any time soon.

Thibs is going to love Rubio's defense and rebounding. It will be interesting to see how he uses him on defense. I think he might be better playing off the ball where he can be more of a help defender. He is big enough to guard SG.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:To be fair, it's right back to Rubio apologies, too. Can't have one without the other.

No, are you special or something?

AbeVigodaLive wrote:For example, pointing to Rubio's decent but not awe-inspiring performances in wins to show his importance to Spain?

So when he plays basically average ball for 1/2 a game and doesn't play like complete horseshit... Spain wins. "See. Rubio is super good and important."

Did other players play "horseshit" in the same games Rubio did? Because if they didn't then Rubio must be very important to Spain, but inconsistent.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:
For the (x) year, I'm looking forward to another season with Rubio at the helm for the Wolves. Once again, there are enough changes around him to hint at this being the year we really find out more about his ultimate ceiling in the NBA... blah blah blah blah.

He is what he is, there are many better, and many worse. I'm honestly more entertained by the debate anymore than I am by the actual question of whether he's a net positive or Satan.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:It'll be more of the same. He'll do some things insanely well. And other things at a high school level. And everything will balance out to him being a very polarizing player and about an average NBA PG. At least, we don't know yet if that's good enough for Thibs... or if he wants more scoring out of the position. That will be interesting to see. And it's why I don't expect Rubio threads to stop any time soon.

The internet is powered by conflict and argument, in that way Rubio is All-NBA!