Minnesota Sports Forum

khans2k5 wrote:So nobody believes Ricky's on/off numbers are skewed by the fact we have lacked a competent backup PG pretty much the entire time he's been here? JJ Barea is probably the best backup PG we've had behind Ricky and I don't think he's very close to the top in terms of quality backup PG's. Mo was traded before he really got the chance to be Ricky's backup this season. On/Off numbers are a combination of the guy leaving and the guy coming on. I don't understand how it's a good argument for saying how good a player is when it has to measure the performance of another player. You're essentially arguing Ricky's good because he's way better than our backup PG's. How is that a way to measure a guy against his peers individually? There's way too many factors that go into On/Off (who's replacing him, who's playing with his replacement, who is he playing with, who are they playing against) to use that as an excuse for why a guy is good. Yes good players have good on/off numbers, but they aren't deemed good players just because of their on/off numbers.

Bingo, Wolves have had probably the worst bench of anybody in Ricky's 4 year stretch

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Bottom line for me...

We're four years in with Ricky Rubio... and I still don't know how good he is. Not only is he a hard guy to judge because of his uniqueness, but with the injuries to himself and others... I really don't know.

Usually, guys like that eventually end up being jettisoned if the winning doesn't follow. It's just easier to point to their weaknesses... whether that's fair or not, or accurate or not... as a reason for the malaise. Personally, I don't think Rubio has been the glaring problem. But, have we seen enough of him and think highly enough of him to be confident that he's part of the solution?

That's a pretty good summation imo.

Agreed. The other BIG piece that the Rubio apologists never talk about is his responsibility for our record over the course of the past several years. Whether it be due to his injuries, or other players injuries, or because his horrible shooting isn't important because he is fairly good elsewhere.....he always seems to get a pass. I mean look what Westbrook did with that OKC team at the end of the year. Without KD and Ibaka, he single handedly almost pushed them into the playoffs. That is a true star and leader. Do what you have to do in order to win ball games.

Part of what irks me about some of these conversations is that many will argue that Rubio simply needs teammates around him to make him look good. That doesn't sit well with me considering beginning next season he will become the 35th highest paid player in the NBA. That's right...in the entire NBA. He is not being paid like a role player. He is getting "star" money....and I simply don't think he can deliver an ROI. The highest paid player on your team needs to be expected to do more than initiate other's talent. He needs to be able to move the needle ON HIS OWN when needed.

Hicks123 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Bottom line for me...

We're four years in with Ricky Rubio... and I still don't know how good he is. Not only is he a hard guy to judge because of his uniqueness, but with the injuries to himself and others... I really don't know.

Usually, guys like that eventually end up being jettisoned if the winning doesn't follow. It's just easier to point to their weaknesses... whether that's fair or not, or accurate or not... as a reason for the malaise. Personally, I don't think Rubio has been the glaring problem. But, have we seen enough of him and think highly enough of him to be confident that he's part of the solution?

That's a pretty good summation imo.

Agreed. The other BIG piece that the Rubio apologists never talk about is his responsibility for our record over the course of the past several years. Whether it be due to his injuries, or other players injuries, or because his horrible shooting isn't important because he is fairly good elsewhere.....he always seems to get a pass. I mean look what Westbrook did with that OKC team at the end of the year. Without KD and Ibaka, he single handedly almost pushed them into the playoffs. That is a true star and leader. Do what you have to do in order to win ball games.

Part of what irks me about some of these conversations is that many will argue that Rubio simply needs teammates around him to make him look good. That doesn't sit well with me considering beginning next season he will become the 35th highest paid player in the NBA. That's right...in the entire NBA. He is not being paid like a role player. He is getting "star" money....and I simply don't think he can deliver an ROI. The highest paid player on your team needs to be expected to do more than initiate other's talent. He needs to be able to move the needle ON HIS OWN when needed.

I'm an unabashed Rubio apologist because I believe he's a difference maker. Anyone who saw how our team performed when he was playing last season could see this. It was plain as day. We weren't even close to competitive without him. It's not much different than how our team crumbled after he went down in his rookie year. He's the straw that stirs the drink.

And since when should the 35th highest paid player in the league be a star?

Q12543 wrote:

Hicks123 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Bottom line for me...

We're four years in with Ricky Rubio... and I still don't know how good he is. Not only is he a hard guy to judge because of his uniqueness, but with the injuries to himself and others... I really don't know.

Usually, guys like that eventually end up being jettisoned if the winning doesn't follow. It's just easier to point to their weaknesses... whether that's fair or not, or accurate or not... as a reason for the malaise. Personally, I don't think Rubio has been the glaring problem. But, have we seen enough of him and think highly enough of him to be confident that he's part of the solution?

That's a pretty good summation imo.

Agreed. The other BIG piece that the Rubio apologists never talk about is his responsibility for our record over the course of the past several years. Whether it be due to his injuries, or other players injuries, or because his horrible shooting isn't important because he is fairly good elsewhere.....he always seems to get a pass. I mean look what Westbrook did with that OKC team at the end of the year. Without KD and Ibaka, he single handedly almost pushed them into the playoffs. That is a true star and leader. Do what you have to do in order to win ball games.

Part of what irks me about some of these conversations is that many will argue that Rubio simply needs teammates around him to make him look good. That doesn't sit well with me considering beginning next season he will become the 35th highest paid player in the NBA. That's right...in the entire NBA. He is not being paid like a role player. He is getting "star" money....and I simply don't think he can deliver an ROI. The highest paid player on your team needs to be expected to do more than initiate other's talent. He needs to be able to move the needle ON HIS OWN when needed.

I'm an unabashed Rubio apologist because I believe he's a difference maker. Anyone who saw how our team performed when he was playing last season could see this. It was plain as day. We weren't even close to competitive without him. It's not much different than how our team crumbled after he went down in his rookie year. He's the straw that stirs the drink.

And since when should the 35th highest paid player in the league be a star?

I think the rub is...

Is he the only PG who could make the Wolves competitive? Or, has it been more pronounced because of the suckiness behind him in the lineup?

alexftbl8181 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:So nobody believes Ricky's on/off numbers are skewed by the fact we have lacked a competent backup PG pretty much the entire time he's been here? JJ Barea is probably the best backup PG we've had behind Ricky and I don't think he's very close to the top in terms of quality backup PG's. Mo was traded before he really got the chance to be Ricky's backup this season. On/Off numbers are a combination of the guy leaving and the guy coming on. I don't understand how it's a good argument for saying how good a player is when it has to measure the performance of another player. You're essentially arguing Ricky's good because he's way better than our backup PG's. How is that a way to measure a guy against his peers individually? There's way too many factors that go into On/Off (who's replacing him, who's playing with his replacement, who is he playing with, who are they playing against) to use that as an excuse for why a guy is good. Yes good players have good on/off numbers, but they aren't deemed good players just because of their on/off numbers.

Bingo, Wolves have had probably the worst bench of anybody in Ricky's 4 year stretch

I'm not a JJ Barea fan, but I'd hardly characterize him as one of the worst backup PGs. And yeah, starting PGs are usually better than their backups. That's why they are starters.

On/Off is one of many different metrics to look at and can't be used in isolation, but it's very illustrative to me of Rubio's impact.

The problem with traditional metrics like PER and WS/48 (which Lawson does better in) is that they don't account for defensive impact. ESPN's Real Plus-Minus is a good rating because it adjusts for other players on the floor and looks at both offensive and defensive impact. Rubio ranks higher than Lawson on this metric too.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM/position/1

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

Hicks123 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Bottom line for me...

We're four years in with Ricky Rubio... and I still don't know how good he is. Not only is he a hard guy to judge because of his uniqueness, but with the injuries to himself and others... I really don't know.

Usually, guys like that eventually end up being jettisoned if the winning doesn't follow. It's just easier to point to their weaknesses... whether that's fair or not, or accurate or not... as a reason for the malaise. Personally, I don't think Rubio has been the glaring problem. But, have we seen enough of him and think highly enough of him to be confident that he's part of the solution?

That's a pretty good summation imo.

Agreed. The other BIG piece that the Rubio apologists never talk about is his responsibility for our record over the course of the past several years. Whether it be due to his injuries, or other players injuries, or because his horrible shooting isn't important because he is fairly good elsewhere.....he always seems to get a pass. I mean look what Westbrook did with that OKC team at the end of the year. Without KD and Ibaka, he single handedly almost pushed them into the playoffs. That is a true star and leader. Do what you have to do in order to win ball games.

Part of what irks me about some of these conversations is that many will argue that Rubio simply needs teammates around him to make him look good. That doesn't sit well with me considering beginning next season he will become the 35th highest paid player in the NBA. That's right...in the entire NBA. He is not being paid like a role player. He is getting "star" money....and I simply don't think he can deliver an ROI. The highest paid player on your team needs to be expected to do more than initiate other's talent. He needs to be able to move the needle ON HIS OWN when needed.

I'm an unabashed Rubio apologist because I believe he's a difference maker. Anyone who saw how our team performed when he was playing last season could see this. It was plain as day. We weren't even close to competitive without him. It's not much different than how our team crumbled after he went down in his rookie year. He's the straw that stirs the drink.

And since when should the 35th highest paid player in the league be a star?

I think the rub is...

Is he the only PG who could make the Wolves competitive? Or, has it been more pronounced because of the suckiness behind him in the lineup?

Rubio has proven that when he's paired with other good-to-great players (Pek, Love, and Martin), he can quarterback one of the best starting lineups in the league (and all those guys were flawed as well!). And he's also proven that when he's quarterbacking a squad sorely lacking in experience and talent (like last year's team), he can at least keep it competitive.

I'm not sure what else he needs to do to prove that he makes a positive difference to team results.

I don't think anybody is saying he isn't a positive. At $14+M for several more years, that would be an entirely different discussion.

I just don't know how good he really is.

We can go back to two years ago when Kevin Love put in an incredible season and the Wolves finished below .500. How much of that success was Rubio? Love? How much of the losing was because of a shoddy bench? Other factors?

I really don't know. That team SHOULD have been above .500. Was Rubio out at the end of so many close losses part of the reason? Or, was Adelman, who's been around awhile, on to something about Rubio's glaring weakness in big moments?

I'm thinking there's a lot of gray area and noise in there. Rubio was one piece of the puzzle to the Wolves starters playing well. But it's not that simple. The team still wasn't very good.

As for last season, it was a lost season. Sure, they looked more competitive for the most part and 6 - 16 with Rubio is still better than 10 - 50 without him... but is it an obvious sign that Rubio is a difference maker for years to come? Again... I don't know. I'm excited to find out though. He's fun to watch.

I just find it amusing/maddening to be 4 years in and still not know for sure with the guy.

Abe I think a big part of that frustration lies in the fact the team was not built even remotely competently around him or any other player we've had. It was like we were trying to build around Love, with no respect to Rubio, then Rubio, but no respect to Love. We had no clue who we were supposed to be. When the team had runners, we didn't run. When we didn't, we tried to and failed. This team has undergone so many half-hearted identity changes in the last decade, surrounded by front office chaos and buffoonery, that I can't take a good portion of the on-court performance as a true indicator of any one player. I think if the team is serious about establishing an identity of two-way players over one-way talent, the front office will be able to create that identity in short order and we can truly see who players are going to be.

Of course injuries can destroy all that, but aren't our guys due for some good fortune for once?

They do split WS into offense and defense. Ricky has only had an offensive win share over 1 one time in his career (his 81 game season at 2.2). Lawson has only posted less than 3 in his rookie year. Defensively Ricky is higher at 3.6 in his last full season to Lawson's best of 1.8. At the end of the day the gap between Lawson and Ricky's offense and their defense still favors Lawson overall. I'd rather have Lawson's almost 15/10/3 than Ricky's 10/9/5. There are guys in this league that actually use their ability to put the ball in the basket to open up their passing game to rack up the assists. Ricky has the superior vision and passing, yet he has less passing lanes to work with because he isn't a threat to score. The true elite assist men in the game offset it with their own offense and Ricky just doesn't have his own offense to make the full offensive impact other players like Lawson make. He's a good player, but I'm not a fan of guys who make 14 million a year needing other players to perform well for their impact to be felt.

I don't have Ricky in an untouchable group...I'm game for any trade that makes us better long-term. But I think it's folly to suggest we roll with Mudiay or Russell as our PG instead of Rubio. I think Russell has the potential to be an elite offensive NBA guard...but we're only talking potential here, and his defense is not likely to ever approach Rubio's. And I don't think anybody has enough information about Mudiay to make a rational conclusion about him. I'm comfortable staying with Ricky. Yes, his shooting is subpar, but his defense is very good, and we have all seen the positive impact he has on the team.

I'm more than comfortable rolling with Ricky. I'm downright excited to see what he can do paired with two #1 picks. Ricky flat out makes teammates better...just imagine what he can do with Wiggins and Towns/Okafor!