Minnesota Sports Forum

thedoper wrote:

PorkChop wrote:Just a coincidence the Wolves are winning all these close games all of a sudden?

Rubio in 6 years had maybe one stat line like Teague did tonight in game 7. It is not a coincidence.

Ricky night put up a similar stat line tonight.

Overall I think both teams are better because of the point guard

kekgeek1 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

PorkChop wrote:Just a coincidence the Wolves are winning all these close games all of a sudden?

Rubio in 6 years had maybe one stat line like Teague did tonight in game 7. It is not a coincidence.

Ricky night put up a similar stat line tonight.

Overall I think both teams are better because of the point guard

I still wouldn't say Utah is a better fit for Rubio because they really don't have enough other scorers around him. That being said, he's making the most of a change of scenery and doing quite well there.

Utah and Minnesota with the same record! I love Rubio, but at some point we need Utah to start losing some games!

kekgeek1 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

PorkChop wrote:Just a coincidence the Wolves are winning all these close games all of a sudden?

Rubio in 6 years had maybe one stat line like Teague did tonight in game 7. It is not a coincidence.

Ricky night put up a similar stat line tonight.

Overall I think both teams are better because of the point guard

That's great that he did it for his new team. When did he do it for us though? We can all count the times on our hands.

It's a good time to be a Ricky fan. If the Wolves win it's becuz of the new additions and improvement of its youngsters. If they lose it's becuz Ricky isn't here. Can't lose!

PorkChop wrote:It's a good time to be a Ricky fan. If the Wolves win it's becuz of the new additions and improvement of its youngsters. If they lose it's becuz Ricky isn't here. Can't lose!

Pork, you might have a stronger argument if the wolves hadn't been blown out by two east teams when Butler didn't suit up.

Q12543 wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

PorkChop wrote:Just a coincidence the Wolves are winning all these close games all of a sudden?

Rubio in 6 years had maybe one stat line like Teague did tonight in game 7. It is not a coincidence.

Ricky night put up a similar stat line tonight.

Overall I think both teams are better because of the point guard

I still wouldn't say Utah is a better fit for Rubio because they really don't have enough other scorers around him. That being said, he's making the most of a change of scenery and doing quite well there.

Utah and Minnesota with the same record! I love Rubio, but at some point we need Utah to start losing some games!

Q I know you think Rubio is what he is and you appreciate that but to me Utah is a great test tube environment to see if he can be more than just the Rubio we have seen the last few years with the Wolves. If he was here in MN he would be playing his usual role only passing the ball and at times being a liability offensively. I think a change of scenery with a roster that's basically built to his strengths that actually needs him to have the ball a lot and even score could be interesting to see what he can do. I honestly hope he has plenty of success there because he adds some decent scoring shooting to his game and becomes a fixture with the Jazz as their pg for the next 7-10 years and becomes sort of a Memphis Grizzzlies type team.

Monster, what we are seeing from Rubio now is similar to the Rubio we saw in the second half of last year, so he started turning the corner last season once Thibs put more of the offense in his hands and told him to be more aggressive. I don't see Teague fading into the woodwork as just a floor spacer with our current squad, so I'm not sure why Rubio wouldn't be able to be aggressive as well.....

Right now he is Utah's 2nd leading scorer at 15.7 PPG and he is shooting a career best 43% from the field, 35% from 3, and 89% from the line. So he is scoring with decent volume AND efficiency.

That being said, he really needs a strong #1 scorer on the team and ideally a #2.....which is no different from Jeff Teague by the way. Neither of these guys are meant to be big time scoring options that take over games in the 4th quarter.

But in Wolves Rubio wouldn't have been for sure even third option, so he couldn't have had as high usage as currently in Jazz. Last year he had career high usage (22.4% post all star break) in second half mainly because one of the main scorers of that Wolves team Lavine was injured.

This year Rubio has had even higher usage (over 25%) because Jazz team lacks shot creators in offense. So almost in any other team his usage would have been clearly lower. Most probably Ricky's shooting percentages will also regress closer to previous seasons since currently he is hitting clearly over 50 % of long twos that I have read to not be sustainable.:) Currently Ricky is also averaging almost 5 TOs per 36 minutes that is way more than ever before. I assume that it is because new team and that when they get more familiar with each other that number will decrease to same level than in previous years.

I think that from individual success point of view current Jazz team is optimal for Ricky. He will play mostly with ball in offense and has higher usage than ever before. We will see if increased role in offense will also lead higher efficiency. Jazz team has also couple of excellent three point shooters in Hood and Ingles and really good pick and roll big Gobert. All three players will give more room for Ricky when he is handling the ball.

In defense Gobert (and Udoh in lesser extent) are really good rim protectors, which will mean that Ricky can take more changes to get steals than with any of Wolves teams. So also from defensive point of view, Jazz will also be probably the team which maximizes Ricky's potential as team defender.

But I agree with Q that from team success point of view, Jazz is pretty far from optimal team for Rubio since he should't ever be the highest usage guy in offense.

Small sample size, but as of now... the statistics for Rubio and Teague just add more sizzle to this thread. They're very comparable.

Rubio
15.7 ppg / 4.9 reb / 7.3 ast / 4.4. TO / 43.0% fg / 35.1% 3fg (18.0 PER)

Teague
14.3 ppg / 3.3 reb / 7.6 ast / 3.3 TO / 42.7% fg / 45.0% 3fg (17.8 PER)

*3 minutes left in OT in the jazz game.

Ricky has 19 pts and 1 ast!!!!!

Teague had 5 pts and 9 asts


Did they switch bodies I need to know