Timberwolves Player Preview: Ricky Rubio

This is the fifteenth and final part in our series previewing the entire Minnesota Timberwolves roster, player-by-player from the least to the most minutes played last season.

(Note: This article was written prior to Ricky Rubio’s sprained elbow in Saturday night’s loss to the Sacramento Kings. The timeline for his return is unknown at this time.)

No different from the past few seasons, perhaps the most controversial player on the Timberwolves roster is Ricky Rubio.

Everyone loves Karl-Anthony Towns. Andrew Wiggins is suddenly less of a controversial prospect now that he’s only going to be asked to play second-fiddle to Towns, although much is still expected of him.

The third potential star, Zach LaVine, has been a revelation since moving off the ball full-time, and the likes of Gorgui Dieng and Shabazz Muhammad are solid rotation players with shrinking upside.

Rubio is now 26 years old and coming off the best season of his NBA career in 2015-16. That said, it was far from a breakout year; it was simply a fully healthy season with incremental improvement in a number of areas.

Before tearing his ACL during March of his rookie year in 2012, in between his recovery and devastating ankle injury in fall of 2014, and in the 12 months since his return, Rubio has been an above-average defender at the point guard spot.

He’s solid on the ball and a top-flight help-side defensive player, bothering opposing wings and clogging up passing lanes with his quickness, height, and wingspan.

Rubio is also an above-average rebounder for his position, and combined with his defensive prowess, that’s where the majority of his value is derived.

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Yes, he struggles to score the ball from the floor with efficiency, but the biggest way in which Rubio’s production increased last season was at the free throw line. While he continued to struggle with jump-shooting and scoring at the rim, he was generally more aggressive and became adept at drawing fouls and reaching the charity stripe.

Rubio improved his free throw rate from a .432 career mark to .536 last season, which led to another 1.2 attempts per 36 minutes. And once he got there, he made the attempts at a career-high rate of 84.7 percent.

His three-point percentage climbed back up near league-average at 32.6 percent, bringing his career percentage to 31.7 percent. Not good, of course, but it’s getting near palatable levels.

If Rubio can improve his scoring around the rim by continuing to add upper-body strength and putting time between his knee and ankle injuries while keeping his free throw rate up, there is still room for development on the offensive end of the floor. (For the record, his field goal percentage at the rim increased to a career-high 51.7 percent a year ago as well, but that mark is still far too low.)

Rubio has also demonstrated the ability to hit threes at a near-league-average rate when his lower body is healthy. That means that if similar improvements are made both at the rim and beyond the arc again in his age-26 season, he could become an obviously above-average offensive player in addition to his top-flight defense.

As of today, Rubio is pretty clearly a top-10 or 11 point guard (according to ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus, he was fifth in the league last season). But there are players better than him today that will regress while Rubio has some fairly simple development that should be largely within his control, given relative health.

Making the above improvements in 2016-17 season could put him in the range of top-eight and warrant some All-Defensive Second Team consideration. Playing a full, healthy season with LaVine at shooting guard, not to mention the rapidly-improving likes of Wiggins and Towns will only help buoy Rubio’s assist numbers.

Here’s hoping for a healthy season with some more incremental improvement from both beyond the arc and in the paint from Rubio.

Next: Simulating the Timberwolves' 2016-17 Season On NBA 2k17

That would be a recipe for success for both the Timberwolves as a team as well as Rubio himself, and if Kris Dunn really is the eventual point guard of the future, it would only help Rubio’s trade value moving forward.