Timberwolves Notes: More Ricky Rubio rumors, Thibs as exec

Another day, another rumor involving the Timberwolves trading starting point guard Ricky Rubio; plus musings on Tom Thibodeau as a front office executive.

Scroll back through June and July here at Dunking With Wolves and you’ll see a plethora of Timberwolves rumors centering around Ricky Rubio.

Do they want to trade him now that Kris Dunn was selected fifth-overall in June’s NBA Draft? If so, when will they pull the trigger? Was he on the table for Chicago in a Jimmy Butler swap? Does Tom Thibodeau even want to coach Ricky Rubio?

We don’t really have answers to many of the above questions, but it would remain a surprise if Thibodeau, just a month prior to training camp kicking off, decided to trade his veteran starting point guard.

Remember: Thibodeau didn’t take this job to win 33 games and go home in mid-April. And there aren’t many playoff teams that make it by starting a rookie point guard.

Anyways, here’s the latest rumor, this time involving the Sacramento Kings. We discussed the possibility of Rubio-to-the-Kings earlier in the month as Darren Wolfson brought it up once again, but a match is pretty tough to see.

At any rate, Hoops Rumors posted the rumor, which originated on Mitch Lawrence’s Sirius XM NBA Radio show. Here’s a link to the audio.

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It’s only a 44-second clip, but here’s a summary: before signing Ty Lawson (because he’s as good as Rubio, right?), the Kings were “close” to acquiring a point guard via trade. It’s tough to see why Lawrence thinks it’s the Wolves, other than Cousins and Rubio hugged for a long time after the U.S.A. played Spain in Rio at the Olympics.

That part is ridiculous, of course. Rubio and Cousins share an agent, and have often shared lengthy chats after Wolves-Kings games.

That said, who knows if there is additional steam as Wolfson had previously (and consistently) pumped up Wolves-Kings trade rumors.

A Rubio trade is not happening before the season, folks. Could it happen at the deadline in February? Maybe. Next summer? It’s possible, if not likely. But it isn’t happening soon.

Lastly, Sean Highkin at Pro Basketball Talk commended Tom Thibodeau’s early foray into front office life. He mostly is impressed that Thibs didn’t fall into the Doc Rivers school of dual-roles — old friends Pau Gasol, Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, and E’Twaun Moore did not end up on the Wolves this summer. (He tried on most if not all of them, of course, but the key here is that he did not overpay.)

Highkin’s ‘if’ regarding Dunn overtaking Rubio at point guard in training camp is a bit aggressive, of course, but he’s overall complementary of the job that Thibs has done over the past four months.

Next: Watch: Karl-Anthony Towns Wins Home Run Derby (Video)

The next few weeks will be prediction heavy, and here’s hoping that the optimism overtakes all of the silly rumors that we’ve been dealing with of late.