The Atypical Impact Of Ricky Rubio
By Aaron Mah
Amid all the injuries, streaks, and trades that have dominated the NBA newswire over the last several weeks, the hottest topic around continues to be the ongoing nip-and-tuck race for the MVP award.
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The top-three candidates for the prestigious award — namely, James Harden, Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook — all share several distinct similarities.
To be more specific, the trio of playmaking guards all dominate the game through their ability to pick apart teams with their passing, keep the opposition on their proverbial heels with their propensity to unleash an avalanche of threes, and overwhelm opponents at the rim through strong finishes and free points at the charity stripe.
In today’s point guard-centric, spread pick-and-roll league, it is imperative for primary ballhandlers to keep the defense honest by serving as a viable scoring threat on all three levels (three-point, midrange and at the rim).
The elite initiators, such as the aforementioned trio, along with the Chris Pauls, LeBron James, Damian Lillards, and even the Jeff Teagues of the world, make their respective offenses hum through their penchant at causing defenses to bend as a dual passing-and-scoring threat.
Place In Today’s Game
The Minnesota Timerwolves‘ star lead guard, Ricky Rubio, however, defies all modern conventional wisdoms.
Now in his fourth season, Rubio remains as one of the league’s worst outside shooters. Explicitly, he’s shooting 25.0 percent from beyond the arc and scores on an anemic TS% (true shooting percentage) of 45.5 percent, way below the league’s median in both categories, per Basketball-Reference.
To make matters worse, Rubio is a sloppy finisher around the rim, converting on only 32.6 percent of his shot attempts from 10 feet and in this year, according to NBA.com.
The only aspect of Rubio’s game that keeps him from being an unmitigated disaster as a scorer is his ability to get the line at a respectable rate, and make them at an 80.3 percent clip.
Sure enough, Rubio is not much of a scoring threat off of PNR (pick-and-roll) situations. Specifically, Rubio generates a banal 0.74 PPP (points per possession) when serving as the ballhandler in screen-and-rolls, which ranks him in the bottom 34-percentile when compared to his contemporaries, per NBA.com’s SportVU Data.
Consequently, Minnesota runs the second fewest pick-and-rolls in the association; in spite it being the staple of most NBA offenses. In the interest of full disclosure, though, much of the team’s mundane output in PNR sets has just as much to do with playing a green 19-year-old rookie in Zach LaVine at point guard for the majority of the season, more so than anything else.
An Idiosyncratic Nomad
Yet, despite his deficiencies as an offensive threat, the Wolves’ play on both ends of the floor markedly improves when the flamboyant Spaniard leads their attack. In fact, Rubio is second on the Timberwolves’ incumbent roster in raw plus/minus and individual net rating, trailing only Kevin Garnett.
Since both statistics are inherently “noisy,” let’s try to put the correct context around his profound impact.
According to 82games.com, the Wolves’ offense is a full 4.3 points per 100 possessions better when Rubio is manning the point. Likewise, their defense concedes an astonishing 10.1 points per 100 possessions less when Pretty Ricky is playing.
To put that into perspective, only John Wall of the Washington Wizards boasts such a jaw-dropping fallout on his team’s defensive efficiency — at the point guard position — when he sits. More specifically, the Wizards allow 11.7 points per 100 possessions more when Wall is on the bench.
Overall, the Timberwolves operate with a heightened sense of efficacy, on both ends, with a healthy and spry Rubio.
He effectively compensates for his lack of shooting with his uncommon effect defending the point of attack, and his bewildering, once-in-a-generation-esque ability to see the entire floor on offense.
While the Timberwolves’ defensive woes have been well documented this season — at present, the worst defensive team in the NBA in terms of defensive rating and opponent eFG% (effective field goal percentage) — Minnesota’s defense has drastically improved since Rubio’s return in early February.
As a team, the Wolves are the third worst in the association when it comes to containing the ballhandler in PNR situations. In fact, Minnesota gives up 0.85 PPP to the ballhandler on screen-and-roll sets.
However, when Ricky serves as the lead defender, opposing ballhandlers produce an underwhelming 0.53 PPP when coming off the PNR, which ranks within the top 96-percentile according to NBA.com.
Rubio understands the importance of splitting the court when defending the PNR — staying on his man’s hip, forcing him towards the sideline, and knowing where his backline help will be coming from. Additionally, his innate sense of spatial awareness and never-ending arms enables Rubio to deflect, steal, and cause numerous turnovers when defending his smaller counterparts.
For such reasons, it comes to no surprise that Rubio ranks third among point guards in Defensive Real Plus-Minus (DRPM) this season, according to ESPN.com — trailing only John Wall and Stephen Curry, and ahead of the likes of Eric Bledsoe, Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry, and Chris Paul.
More interestingly, the Wolves’ newly assembled starting lineup (if they could just stay healthy) of Rubio, Kevin Martin, Andrew Wiggins, Kevin Garnett, and Nikola Pekovic have allowed just 83.3 points per 100 possessions and an opponent eFG% of 43.2 percent through their 50 minutes of on court play with one another, almost 15 points per 100 possessions and 10 percentage points less than their season output in both respective categories.
Offensively, while Rubio continues to struggle as a scorer, his ability to probe defenses and find the little creases/openings that only a handful of players can discover, makes Ricky an overall net positive on the offensive end.
His passing wizardry and tendency to see the play before it happens is truly a sight to behold.
For the season, Rubio would rank fourth in the association in assists per game if he were to have played enough games to qualify among the league leaders.
Moreover, he ranks third in the league, trailing only CP3 and Wall, in points created off of assists per 48 minutes, at 31.1, and tenth in the NBA in secondary assists per game, at 1.5.
Future Cornerstone
At this point in his career, it is still too early to give up on Rubio’s shooting. Although the results have been murky, at best, Ricky has been a much more willing shooter thus far this season.
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Dunking with Wolves
In fact, approximately 45.9 percent of shots this year derive from the 16-24 feet areas of the floor, where he is converting such attempts on a career-best 41.1 percent clip.
Most of his jump shot attempts come directly off of rubbing off the screener in high PNR sets. In fact, roughly 48.3 percent of his shot attempts are of the pull-up variety, in his continuous plight to make defenses pay for going under.
However, shooting primarily long twos pigeonholes Rubio’s efficiency as a scorer. Chiefly, he is only a 42.5 eFG% shooter when pulling up. If he can develop the legs to stretch his pull-up game out to the three-point line, his scoring efficiency should undoubtedly skyrocket.
What’s most optimistic is that, for the first time in his brief NBA career, Rubio is outwardly seeking his own shot. And, additionally, his mechanics are as crisp and compact as ever.
The next step is to take his improvements as a long-two shooter out towards the three-point line. If that happens, flanked by the team’s army of ultra-athletic wings — notably, Wiggins, Zach LaVine and Shabazz Muhammad — in conjunction with their 2015 top-five draft pick, playoff basketball could make a premature return back to the Twin Cities.
Next: 5 Likely First Time NBA All-Stars Next Season
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