Minnesota Sports Forum

The actual reason we are losing is because our team is made mostly of boys who have yet to become men. Thats not a knock, just that they need time. Rubio is fine. The guy averages 8 shots a game and the one or two misses extra are more then made up on the other end. In two more years it will be funny to see the arguing about this when er are really good.

Then the Wolves have been even Worse than we thought...

With a PG THAT good, the team still hasn't reached .500 since he's been in the league.

They're still only 17-37 with Rubio carrying them.

Here's the problem with Rubio. If you understand the way the game is played and coached today, you know it is going to be very difficult to have Ricky on the floor in the 4th quarter of playoff games. Coaches are going to force him to take outside shots and that is going to be problematic. Because we don't have to worry about this for a while, I'm not to concerned about Ricky being our starting PG right now. Hopefully this becomes something we have to deal with sooner rather than later.

Suppose we keep our roster basically intact. And suppose Lavine continues to progress. I could see Ricky spending the end of games on the bench while Zach runs the team down the stretch. That might begin to happen as soon as we get more competitive.

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

TeamRicky wrote:Where does Ricky rank among steals, assists, rebounds, plus minus, Real Plus Minus among point guards? All Ricky critics focus on his FG shooting percentage. They don't want to look past it.

How many games have we won this year with this phenomenal PG? Oh ya, not many. Good players win you games. End of story. Wall, Westbrook, Parker, Irving, Lillard, Steph, CP3, Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic, Kemba Walker, Kyle Lowry, Jeff Teague and on and on. You know what they all are doing? Winning more games than Ricky so what's Ricky's excuse? Towns is playing like an all-star this year and you only need two of those to be able to hover around .500, so if Ricky is so great, why are we at only 17 wins? Face it. Ricky has been a stat stuffer on a bad team, not an actual difference maker in the one thing that matters which is W-L.

You have got to be kidding Kahns. While I certainly don't consider Ricky to be the type of tour de force that Russell Westbrook or Steph Curry are, the idea that somehow he's just out there stuffing stats and not positively impacting the game is simply ridiculous. We've proven that wrong time and again.

It's one stat, but in 5 seasons Ricky has been worth 19.2 estimated wins above a replacement player (one of Hollinger's stats). In comparison, Steph Curry is 17.8 estimated wins above a replacement player this year alone already and Love in '13-'14 was at 21.5 estimated wins above a replacement player. I just don't get why it's a fair and reasonable argument that Ricky isn't responsible for our W-L record at all and the guys around him are. To me that's fucking stupid. Oh and he's the highest paid player on the team, but let's blame everyone else. Ricky shouldn't have to get any better. It's everyone else's responsibility to get better so they can carry Ricky to victories. Ya, that's a reasonable take.

If this team finds a pg to supplant Ricky we will be in phenomenal shape because it will take A LOT more than someone that shoots better. Until then we should stop clamoring to trade him just to trade him for better shooting.

I think the more effective strategy will be to have Ricky and the team focus on his strength and conditioning specifically in his lower body. He needs stamina to hit shots late in games. I think his % numbers by quarter supports this.

khans2k5 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

TeamRicky wrote:Where does Ricky rank among steals, assists, rebounds, plus minus, Real Plus Minus among point guards? All Ricky critics focus on his FG shooting percentage. They don't want to look past it.

How many games have we won this year with this phenomenal PG? Oh ya, not many. Good players win you games. End of story. Wall, Westbrook, Parker, Irving, Lillard, Steph, CP3, Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic, Kemba Walker, Kyle Lowry, Jeff Teague and on and on. You know what they all are doing? Winning more games than Ricky so what's Ricky's excuse? Towns is playing like an all-star this year and you only need two of those to be able to hover around .500, so if Ricky is so great, why are we at only 17 wins? Face it. Ricky has been a stat stuffer on a bad team, not an actual difference maker in the one thing that matters which is W-L.

You have got to be kidding Kahns. While I certainly don't consider Ricky to be the type of tour de force that Russell Westbrook or Steph Curry are, the idea that somehow he's just out there stuffing stats and not positively impacting the game is simply ridiculous. We've proven that wrong time and again.

It's one stat, but in 5 seasons Ricky has been worth 19.2 estimated wins above a replacement player (one of Hollinger's stats). In comparison, Steph Curry is 17.8 estimated wins above a replacement player this year alone already and Love in '13-'14 was at 21.5 estimated wins above a replacement player. I just don't get why it's a fair and reasonable argument that Ricky isn't responsible for our W-L record at all and the guys around him are. To me that's fucking stupid. Oh and he's the highest paid player on the team, but let's blame everyone else. Ricky shouldn't have to get any better. It's everyone else's responsibility to get better so they can carry Ricky to victories. Ya, that's a reasonable take.

Estimated Wins Above Replacement largely uses box score metrics as its basis, similar to PER, and also similar to PER likes volume scorers, which is why Wiggins does fairly well in that metric but fairly crappy in nearly every other advanced stat that exists. We all know Rubio's impact can't be measured by traditional box score stats alone. Also, according to EWAR, KG and Tayshaun Prince are the two main reasons we are so horrible this year. Nevermind the fact they along with Rubio are the only three guys that keep us at least passable on defense.

Your last few sentences are just whiny.

khans2k5 wrote:

TeamRicky wrote:Where does Ricky rank among steals, assists, rebounds, plus minus, Real Plus Minus among point guards? All Ricky critics focus on his FG shooting percentage. They don't want to look past it.

How many games have we won this year with this phenomenal PG? Oh ya, not many. Good players win you games. End of story. Wall, Westbrook, Parker, Irving, Lillard, Steph, CP3, Isaiah Thomas, Goran Dragic, Kemba Walker, Kyle Lowry, Jeff Teague and on and on. You know what they all are doing? Winning more games than Ricky so what's Ricky's excuse? Towns is playing like an all-star this year and you only need two of those to be able to hover around .500, so if Ricky is so great, why are we at only 17 wins? Face it. Ricky has been a stat stuffer on a bad team, not an actual difference maker in the one thing that matters which is W-L.

Rubio helps win games in other ways, not his scoring. He's much more likely to make a great defensive play and put a teammate in a good spot to win the game and for the most part the team has been too young/inexperienced to start taking advantage of that sort of thing. They're slowly starting to look better though which is exciting.

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:If this team finds a pg to supplant Ricky we will be in phenomenal shape because it will take A LOT more than someone that shoots better. Until then we should stop clamoring to trade him just to trade him for better shooting.

I think the more effective strategy will be to have Ricky and the team focus on his strength and conditioning specifically in his lower body. He needs stamina to hit shots late in games. I think his % numbers by quarter supports this.

Fair take Phenom.

TeamRicky definitely oversells Rubio in his flurry of initial posts. I love Rubio, but he isn't among the top 8 PGs in the league. Beyond that it gets fuzzier to me, as I definitely feel like he's anywhere from the 9-15 range, but at that point, you're almost splitting hairs.

If we want a team built around a scoring PG that can take over games, then be prepared to part with either Wiggins or KAT to go get that guy.

If we want a PG that is more of a threat to score, but doesn't require a king's ransom to go get, then there are tradeoffs. D'Angelo Russell? Big risk to just assume he will eventually be better than Rubio. Mike Conley? FA risk and starting to reach an age that puts him out of synch with our core. Jeff Teague? He might be the most realistic option, but I really don't know if it moves the needle.

I like going the route of finding a legit #2 PG. One of the biggest problems with this squad in the "Rubio era" is how we absolutely fall apart when he's on the bench. Swapping out Rubio for Conley or Teague won't solve that problem.

Here is a composite of where Ricky ranks this season versus other starting PGs in various advanced stats:

RPM (a plus-minus type stat that Team Ricky loves) - 5th
EWA ( a Hollinger box-score stat that Khans loves) - 13th
PER - 12th
WS/48 - 11th
Wins Produced - 6th
VORP - 10th
BPM - 11th

I can't think of any others. Of course Team Ricky is using the stat the most generous to Ricky and Khans is using a stat that is one of the least generous to Ricky (yet still not bad).

But the one common theme is that every single one has him placed in the upper half of starting PGs.

khans2k5 wrote:
It's one stat, but in 5 seasons Ricky has been worth 19.2 estimated wins above a replacement player (one of Hollinger's stats). In comparison, Steph Curry is 17.8 estimated wins above a replacement player this year alone already and Love in '13-'14 was at 21.5 estimated wins above a replacement player. I just don't get why it's a fair and reasonable argument that Ricky isn't responsible for our W-L record at all and the guys around him are. To me that's fucking stupid. Oh and he's the highest paid player on the team, but let's blame everyone else. Ricky shouldn't have to get any better. It's everyone else's responsibility to get better so they can carry Ricky to victories. Ya, that's a reasonable take.

It's not that he hasn't been responsible at all. It's that the biggest problems with this team are defense and youth/inexperience. Yes, Rubio needs to improve offensively. At the very least he needs to be able to finish in the paint. With that said he's not losing us games. He's just not the type of player to bail us out with his scoring. That's where KAT, Wiggins and Lavine come into play.