Wolves Season in Review: Ricky Rubio

This is Part Five of the Wolves Season in Review player capsules. We’ll be looking at every player that finished the season on the Wolves roster, excluding ten-day contract signees. We’re starting with the players that played the fewest minutes and working our way up the roster to those that logged the most playing time. Today’s featured player is Ricky Rubio.

You’re probably as surprised as I am that Ricky Rubio played the fifth-least minutes of any player that finished the season on the Wolves’ roster. That means that he was on the court less than the likes of Adreian Payne, Anthony Bennett, and Shabazz Muhammad, the latter of which joined the team at the trade deadline and the other two whom each missed extended time due to injury.

Rubio missed a huge chunk of the season with his sprained ankle before returning on February 2nd and playing 17 of 20 games until he was shut down for the season after seeing the floor for 30 minutes in Toronto on March 18th. He underwent surgery on the ankle just prior to the end of the regular season and is expected to be a full go for training camp in fall.

The injury occurred in the fifth game of the season. In the first four contests, Rubio was averaging 10.8 points, 11 assists, and 1.5 steals per game. He was also shooting 41.9% from the field at the time.

Rubio finished the season with the worst shooting percentage of his career, which is significant. Even though he only played 692 minutes in 22 games (also the lowest number of minutes in his four-year career), a shooting percentage of 35.6 is unacceptable. And after hitting on 33.5% of his three-point attempts over 82 games in 2013-14, Rubio shot a miserable 25.5% from beyond the arc this season.

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On the positive side, Rubio’s turnover rate dropped from 21.8% a year ago to just 20.4% in 2014-15 and his assist rate climbed once again, finishing at 43.5%. The steal rate fell a little, but that was no doubt affected by the ankle injury that limited the Spaniard’s lateral quickness in the months of February and March.

The shooting form was improved off the dribble, but Rubio’s catch-and-shoot form is still too much of a set shot. It results in a shot that is flat and simply takes too long to release. Remaking a professional basketball player’s shot is something that obviously takes a ton of time, and retaining shooting coach Mike Penberthy seems to make a lot of sense. Rubio and Penberthy appeared to have a good relationship, and it will take many more reps to get Rubio to shoot a passable percentage from the field.

The bigger issue, however, are the numbers at the rim. Rubio shot a paltry 31.7% around the rim according to NBA.com, albeit in just 41 attempts. Last year, Rubio shot a poor 47% (league average in 2013-14 was 55.7%) at the basket, so it’s a recurring theme that, while in a small sample size, worsened this season. And equally as troubling was Rubio’s free throw rate. After attempting .466 free throws per field goal attempt in his first three seasons in the NBA, Rubio only managed a free throw rate of .324 in 2014-15.

Rubio is still one of the best dozen point guards in the NBA. He’s being paid that way now, too, and the Wolves need him to take a small leap into the top seven or eight of a point guard rich league. Alongside Andrew Wiggins and whomever they select in the 2015 NBA Draft, there is still an exciting nucleus in Minnesota. The complimentary players still need to be worked on, but the core is mostly there.

Now, it’s up to the soon-to-be 25 year-old Rubio to improve his efficiency from the field and to stay healthy. If he can do that and Wiggins progresses as planned, the Wolves will have something tangible in the next couple of years.

But there are still a lot of variables in the equation, to be sure.

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