Keep Ricky in Minnesota

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

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.

I posted something very, very similar to this about a week ago. Those that oppose Ricky completely ignored it then. I'd assume they ignore it now.

[thedoper]

The only player I'm down for replacing him with at this point is Conley. I would look very closely at drafting PGs though and wouldn't think twice about how it would make him feel to draft one. Until then there is no logical reason that he can't be criticized for being one of the worst shooters ever at his position. I think no one is doubting that his advanced stats put him clearly in the top 8-15 pgs. I just personally lean more to the offensive philosophy that a PG that can never hit a significant shot is going to affect an offense as a whole. The overall impact on wins or losses is difficult to quantify exactly, but simply absolving one important player for a very shitty record doesn't sit well with me.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

The only player I'm down for replacing him with at this point is Conley. I would look very closely at drafting PGs though and wouldn't think twice about how it would make him feel to draft one. Until then there is no logical reason that he can't be criticized for being one of the worst shooters ever at his position. I think no one is doubting that his advanced stats put him clearly in the top 8-15 pgs. I just personally lean more to the offensive philosophy that a PG that can never hit a significant shot is going to affect an offense as a whole. The overall impact on wins or losses is difficult to quantify exactly, but simply absolving one important player for a very shitty record doesn't sit well with me.

So, we'd be a .500 team right now if we had Conley instead of Rubio, right? We'd have 27 wins instead of 17. His scoring at the PG position would make us quite the team... Playoff hunt despite all the other issues the team has. Conley for MVP.

[thedoper]

The only player I'm down for replacing him with at this point is Conley. I would look very closely at drafting PGs though and wouldn't think twice about how it would make him feel to draft one. Until then there is no logical reason that he can't be criticized for being one of the worst shooters ever at his position. I think no one is doubting that his advanced stats put him clearly in the top 8-15 pgs. I just personally lean more to the offensive philosophy that a PG that can never hit a significant shot is going to affect an offense as a whole. The overall impact on wins or losses is difficult to quantify exactly, but simply absolving one important player for a very shitty record doesn't sit well with me.

So, we'd be a .500 team right now if we had Conley instead of Rubio, right? We'd have 27 wins instead of 17. His scoring at the PG position would make us quite the team... Playoff hunt despite all the other issues the team has. Conley for MVP.

I think Conley is a better basketball player than Rubio yes. I don't think that should be shocking. I do think we'd be flirting with 500 as well. We lost a lot of close games in the fourth quarter this year. Conley cleans a lot of that up. We would still need three point shooting and a real offensive system. But we would have normal spacing in the fourth where the opposing PG commits to actually guarding the ball.

[Lipoli390]

I honestly don't think Conley would have made that much of a difference. Yes, we'd have gotten more points out of our PG position. But we'd have gotten fewer rebounds, fewer steals and fewer assists. Truth is, this team shouldn't have any trouble scoring points. We've seen that when Sam has been forced by injuries to play our young talented scorers over guys like KG and Prince who can't score anymore. As for our poor spacing, that's on Sam, not Ricky. I've been to all but one home game this season and I can assure you that the offense is designed to function inside the 3-point arc.

[Monster]

The only player I'm down for replacing him with at this point is Conley. I would look very closely at drafting PGs though and wouldn't think twice about how it would make him feel to draft one. Until then there is no logical reason that he can't be criticized for being one of the worst shooters ever at his position. I think no one is doubting that his advanced stats put him clearly in the top 8-15 pgs. I just personally lean more to the offensive philosophy that a PG that can never hit a significant shot is going to affect an offense as a whole. The overall impact on wins or losses is difficult to quantify exactly, but simply absolving one important player for a very shitty record doesn't sit well with me.

So, we'd be a .500 team right now if we had Conley instead of Rubio, right? We'd have 27 wins instead of 17. His scoring at the PG position would make us quite the team... Playoff hunt despite all the other issues the team has. Conley for MVP.

I think Conley is a better basketball player than Rubio yes. I don't think that should be shocking. I do think we'd be flirting with 500 as well. We lost a lot of close games in the fourth quarter this year. Conley cleans a lot of that up. We would still need three point shooting and a real offensive system. But we would have normal spacing in the fourth where the opposing PG commits to actually guarding the ball.

Conley is a better player than stats say but here are some fun ones comparing him and Rubio via career averages per game.

Conley
FGA 11.3
3PA 3.1
FTA 3.0
PPG 13.5

Rubio

FGA 8.7
3PA 1.8
FTA 3.9
PPG 10.1

So how far apart are these guys as scorers? Obviously if you watch both guys play Conley is a much better scorer than Rubio in virtually every way you can except maybe getting to the line. All I am saying is SOMETIMES I think we suggest the gap is wider when it comes to scoring between Rubio and his peers than maybe it really is and trust me I like Conley's game A LOT and I am very aware of Rubio's scoring limitations. How would a 28 year old Rubio look playing for this Wolves team?

[Monster]

I honestly don't think Conley would have made that much of a difference. Yes, we'd have gotten more points out of our PG position. But we'd have gotten fewer rebounds, fewer steals and fewer assists. Truth is, this team shouldn't have any trouble scoring points. We've seen that when Sam has been forced by injuries to play our young talented scorers over guys like KG and Prince who can't score anymore. As for our poor spacing, that's on Sam, not Ricky. I've been to all but one home game this season and I can assure you that the offense is designed to function inside the 3-point arc.

Good post. Lip the lack of 3 point shooting is frustrating but I was watching a game last week from a week earlier (I think it was the Lakers game) and it really hit me how the guys on the floor for a long stretch just were not threats from distance plus those guys were better off getting to the basket and getting fouled. Now I am not absolving Sam from blame for that but as Wiggins jacked up what seemed like a prayer from 3 I thought to myself "Ok I can see why if I was a coach I wouldn't be looking to find ways to be shooting 3's." This roster is a somewhat weird combination of players and part of it is because of where most guys are at in their careers I think it's hard for them to really fit compliment each right now especially with some guys outside shooting. Shooting is a problem and we all thought it was going to be a problem to a certain extent going into the season and that was assuming Martin would be playing some decent minutes and sadly fortunately he hasn't been playing much. Nobody expected Prince was basically going to be allergic to even taking corner 3's. I don't want to defend Sam too much but it really did hit me right there what he is up against. Plus you have one guy in Belly who could help space more than he does but plays like an unselfish PG and doesn't want to shoot regardless of where he is on the court. At least he generally has the skills let to pull that off a lot of the time. We need a better/more creative coach than Sam but I also do think there is some legit issues with the roster when it comes to 3 point shooting. I do think the potential is there for this roster when it comes to 3 point shooters but it may take some time for say a guy like Wiggins to develop that shot.

[Shumway]

Alright, I've got a genuine question for everyone. Cool, I'd be particularly interested in your response given your coaching background and your view that you cannot win consistently (in the playoffs) with a primary ballhandler who is not a threat to score.

And this is a genuine question because I don't know the answer. It's not a leading question where I'm implying that Ricky's flaws are not an issue.

How does Ricky generate Free Throws at a moderate rate given that he's such a poor shooter and a poor finisher at the rim? I can really understand the theory that in late game situations, opposition coaches should be forcing Rubio to beat us with outside shooting. But surely opposition teams should be instructed not to foul Ricky, because it gets him out of jail. With his ballhandling, is he just able to get to such dangerous spots more consistently, that the defence is forced to treat him as a threat? Is that sufficient to keep the defence honest and offset his poor shooting (at least to a large degree)? Or is it something that gets coached and prepared for during a 7 game series?

Quite a few questions in there in the end.

[MikkeMan]

Alright, I've got a genuine question for everyone. Cool, I'd be particularly interested in your response given your coaching background and your view that you cannot win consistently (in the playoffs) with a primary ballhandler who is not a threat to score.

And this is a genuine question because I don't know the answer. It's not a leading question where I'm implying that Ricky's flaws are not an issue.

How does Ricky generate Free Throws at a moderate rate given that he's such a poor shooter and a poor finisher at the rim? I can really understand the theory that in late game situations, opposition coaches should be forcing Rubio to beat us with outside shooting. But surely opposition teams should be instructed not to foul Ricky, because it gets him out of jail. With his ballhandling, is he just able to get to such dangerous spots more consistently, that the defence is forced to treat him as a threat? Is that sufficient to keep the defence honest and offset his poor shooting (at least to a large degree)? Or is it something that gets coached and prepared for during a 7 game series?

Quite a few questions in there in the end.

I think Ricky gets free throws at good rate at least partially because he is good free throw shooter and not turnover prone, so in late game situations he will have a ball a lot in his hands when opponent needs to intentionally foul. Sometimes it is not even intentional but because opponent needs stop, they play tougher defense and Ricky is good at selling fouls in those situations.

[MikkeMan]

Ricky's the closest thing to Jason Kidd and Kidd a future hall of famer.

Except Rubio's shooting is far worse than Kidd's making him far from Kidd. Here's a comparison of their shooting in year 5 of their careers. Kidd could finish at the rim. Rubio can't make 50% of his layups. There is a reason Ricky is being called the worst shooter of all time.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/plus/shooting.cgi?player_id=kiddja01&year_id=2005&advanced=compare&comp_pid=rubiori01&comp_year=2016

Since Ricky has missed so much time with injuries, it is fairer to compare his 5th season to Kidd's 4th season.

Here are some advanced box score based numbers about that comparison:

Rubio PER 18.1 TS% 50.5 TRB% 8.5 ASTS% 42.4 STL% 3.7 TOV% 19.4 USG% 17.7
Kidd PER 16.4 TS% 50.2 TRB% 9.5 ASTS% 35.6 STL% 2.7 TOV% 21.5 USG% 17.6

Those stats are from http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=rubiori01&y1=2016&p2=kiddja01&y2=1998&p3=&p4=&p5=&p6=basketball-reference.

So based on statistics Ricky has been this season better than Kidd in his 4th season almost every category. Even his TS% has been higher than what Kidd had. Kidd was selected to all star game that season. BTW. I'm not suggesting that Rubio has been better than Kidd at that season. Kidd lead Phoenix to impressive record 56-26 with roster that was pretty bad. They had past prime Rex Chapman, Danny Manning, Kevin Johnson and Clifford Robinson and then 3rd year McDyess and 2nd year Steve Nash in that team. Ricky has not been able to have as big effect on Minnesota team even though his stats have been better than Kidd's stats were.

Quite many people have been complaining a lot about Rubio's ability to finish at rim. Rubio has had FG% 49.4 at rim so far this season. Kidd had at least three seasons with worse FG% at rim before his last all star season. He might have had even more of those because that type of shooting statistics are available only from his 7th season. In two of those seasons, he was still selected to all star game. Kidd also had totally nine seasons with lower TS% than what Rubio have had this season and was selected to all star game in six of those.

So I think Kidd is much closer comparison to Rubio than many people admit. Still I feel that we might not be able to win championship with Ricky on court in the end of games if he doesn't improve his three point shot and start taking those open three pointers that opponent defense give him.