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Rubio: Finally free?

with 10 comments

Weird things have been said and written in the aftermath of Ricky Rubio’s arrival in Minnesota.

Rubio is one of the top rookies in the NBA. In his floor time, he is making the Timberwolves a 104.3 offensive rating vs 96.9 defensive rating team while having played minutes with reserves and the starting unit. He is fifth in the league in assist- and steal-percentage. That is the less controversial part.

His 2010/11 season in Barcelona was a poor one. Was the two-year-spell in Barcelona a waste? Quite the contrary.

The 2009/10 season, his first on elite European level, was excellent. Draftexpress’ minute- and pace-adjusted statistics (after 14 games) show a high degree of similarity between his 2009/10 (Barça) and 2011/12 (Wolves) numbers. That is true for his overall production as well as for the most-discussed aspect of his game, three point shooting. Barça won the Euroleague, Rubio the “Rising Star”-Award.

Year GP Min Pts FGA 3PtA 3P% eFG% FTA FT% TOT Asts Stls Blks TOs
09/10 (ACB) 34 40.0 13.6 9.6 5.3 42.0 56.3 3.9 79.7 5.3 9.0 4.1 0.2 3.7
09/10 (EL) 22 40.0 13.4 9.7 4.8 35.8 45.9 5.0 89.3 5.7 8.1 2.8 0.1 4.2
10/11 (EL) 20 40.0 11.6 9.0 4.4 22.4 36.7 6.0 83.6 5.7 6.4 3.0 0.1 3.2
10/11 (ACB) 34 40.0 9.0 8.6 3.7 27.0 39.5 3.1 77.0 5.8 7.5 2.9 0.0 3.6
11/12 (NBA) 14 40.0 13.2 10.6 2.4 40.7 47.2 4.1 78.7 5.6 10.2 2.8 0.2 4.1

Granted, his 2010 ACB Finals performance vs Caja Laboral was subpar. His 2010 World Championship was similarly poor, causing, for what it’s worth, Marca readers to decare him as main culprit for the summer failure, alongside coach Sergio Scariolo.

In 2010/11, Rubio went 27% from three point range in the ACB, 22.4% in the Euroleague and managed to come up with a jenningsesque sub-40 effective field goal percentage. In the season-defining quarter finals against Panathinaikos, Rubio was left wide open while his matchup was used as part of a double- and triple team on Juan Carlos Navarro. Rubio went 1/9 from three point range in games one, two and four but fired 4/5 in game three. Not enough when the strategy is limiting your best player to six and a half shots per game.

Barça went on to win the ACB title with a dominating defensive effort, which Rubio had a big role in. Were his qualities wasted that season? Define that please. Was he used according to his strength on offense? Probably not to the same degree as the season before and after, but that is a matter of A) form and B) teammate quality/opportunity. Rubio was playing alongside the Kobe Bryant of Spanish basketball, a guy who won Eurobasket Most Valuable Player in a star-packed tournament. Now he’s playing alongside Ridnour and Ellington. Of course you put the ball in his hands.

They decided they couldn’t afford waiting for him to get out of his hole and that was a perfectly reasonable decision at the time. This is a club which went into the season with the goal to win all three titles – the Copa del Rey, the ACB, the Euroleague. There is no room for failure.

According to Engelmann’s regularized adjusted plus minus (RAPM), Rubio’s floor impact in his subpar 2010/11 season was still sensational. He’s among the top players in the two year Euroleague data, which consists of his 2009/10 and 2010/11 games, as well as the past season’s ACB data.

Regarding his current play with the Timberwolves, to say that he is profitting off of finally playing with athletic players and good shooters is a weird argument to bring up. Athleticism was one of Barça’s main advantages over the competition. He had two mobile, athletic bigs (Vazquez, N’Dong) flying up and down the court and connected with their shooters for hundreds of three point shots. Barça was shooting 54 eFG% last season and 56 eFG% the season before – that is prime Phoenix Suns type of field goal shooting efficiency. No NBA team has reached or is reaching 54 eFG% in this or the past season. The Timberwolves are currently at 48%.

More likely, the relative ease he’s been getting assists, knifing to the basket and draining long range shots with is due to the reasons he’s brought up himself: floor spacing through the defensive three seconds rule (the fact that the Wolves are playing with stretch fours is hardly a difference maker, since that is status quo in European basketball) and increased confidence. But none of that stands in contrast to his 2009/10 season.

Notes

NBA teams shoot earlier than Euroleague teams, hence more possessions. That has been the case in each of the last eleven seasons (“1″=01/02 season; “11″=11/12 season). Euroleague effective field goal percentage has been higher than the NBA’s in each of the last eleven seasons, despite taking a drop with the introduction of the new three point line in 2010/11. Offensive Rating (points per 100 possessions; according to the basketball-reference possession formula for both leagues) has been higher in every season as well, except for said 2010/11 season. Offensive Rating has a high correlation with field goal shooting, and Euroleague teams go to the free throw line more frequently (while shooting slightly worse), but turn the ball over more often than NBA teams.

Written by sJacas

January 22nd, 2012 at 2:43 pm

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  • Dimitris Ritsonis

    “Now he’s playing alongside Ridnour and Ellington. Of course you put the ball in his hands.”I think that this is the most important point of your article here. The EFG% you mention is not going to be reached this season in the NBA, or at least that’s what seems more likely at the moment. In Barcelona of 2010-11, as you well mentioned, we had a team destined to not lose a title and this was probably the strongest favorite we had in many years, maybe in the past decade in the European scene. It would be a luxury to say that Rubio could lead the offense in this team, when Navarro (a guy who is a splendid distributor at SG, as a weapon to his unguardable offensive game and his shooting skills) is in the same roster and is healthyOn the other hand, you cannot pass up on the well above average ball handling skills and court vision of Rubio, even though his shooting skills remain poor (regardless the improvement during the lock out). In the NBA, where the room for the one-on-one experts is there to dominate, Rubio has another alternative. He can create while slashing, he doesn’t necessarily need to shoot. His creativity is actually well above average among NBA PGs. I am sure that he is very useful from this aspect

  • mythos

    ”he is making the Timberwolves a 104.3 offensive rating vs 96.9 defensive rating team while having played minutes with reserves and the starting unit.”
    There is no evidence to back this claim.

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    “There is no evidence to back this claim.”

    Care to elaborate?

    The Wolves were 104.3ORAT and 96.9DRAT (before the recent basketballvalue update) while he’s on the floor and through his being as off-the-bench guy first and starter later he’s seen extended minutes with different type of lineups.

  • mythos

    Yes,but you can’t say he makes the timberwolves a 104.3ORAT and 96.9DRAT team.
    that’s the performance of 5-man units of the wolves when rubio is on the floor.
    You can’t give credit or blame for the performance of 5-man units to one of the 5 players.
    What you just wrote simply has no meaning what you can say is that when rubiio is on the floor
    the wolves have a a 104.3ORAT and 96.9DRAT.
    Also +- stats to be reliable need a much higher sample from that we have untill now.
    Maybe that sounds a discusion about semantics but is not and i thought this issue 
    needed clarification.

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    That goes without saying. I’ve used +/- stats long enough.

    I think this is semantics. Otherwise we have to wave a flag every time someone says

    “Player X makes Team Y a better team”, like “Rubio makes the Timberwolves a better team”

    or

    “Player X led Team Y to victory”

  • Rainbow

    I believe Rubio will be the fifth player to record a quadruple double in the NBA history if/when he starts to play an average of 40 mpg. And I think his timing [to play in the NBA] was perfect.

  • JGX

    +1 for jenningsesque

    Speaking of jenningesque, this is my favorite player of the worldwide basketball season so far:
    http://www.fibaeurope.com/cid_KNce8jInH7Qj1EsyH5rjn2.teamID_2639.compID_Rn2Om4j3HOcXtTFwJWFsh3.season_2012.roundID_8649.playerID_89768.html

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    Damn. Nothing else to add.

    Jennings shooting over 50 eFG% is tough. Hopefully just a mood.

  • mythos

    You didn’t prove that rubio makes his team better.
    You said when he is in they are 104.3ORAT and 96.9DRAT team a +8 team
    essentially.Maybe without him they are +10 team.Is that good for rubio?

  • http://www.in-the-game.org sJacas

    They are 100.0 ORAT to 108.6 DRAT when he’s off the floor. -8.6, not +10.