After a number of rumors — and one especially persistent version — surrounding Ricky Rubio turned out to be nothing but smoke, let’s look at back at what the Timberwolves resisted doing at the trade deadline.
Ricky Rubio’s name has been bandied about in various trade rumors for the past couple of years, but the whispers became clearly audible around the time of the NBA draft last June.
Indeed, the Spaniard was the key piece that the Timberwolves seemed willing to part with in any potential draft night trade, which was also Tom Thibodeau’s first big benchmark as leader of an NBA front office. Ultimately, nothing happened, of course, but the fact that Thibodeau and general manager Scott Layden selected Kris Dunn, a point guard, fifth-overall in the draft certainly suggested that Rubio would remain on the trading block.
Just a week after the draft, The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski was hard at work perpetuating the Rubio rumor. Then, Sporting News’ Sean Deveney suggested that Rubio would be moved during or after the initial rush of free agency. Neither scenario occurred.
Then, the Sacramento Kings rumor persisted into and throughout the fall, documented by Dunking With Wolves here and here. That didn’t happen, either.
And more recently, the rumors centered almost entirely around this alleged desire for Thibodeau to reunite with his former MVP point guard, Derrick Rose.
From a basketball-only perspective, it was nonsense, of course. Rose was otherworldly in his early 20’s, before injuries sapped him of his athleticism. But Rubio is clearly the better player today, and obviously a better fit with the Wolves’ variety of offensive weapons.
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In a vacuum, which point guard makes more sense to match with the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, and Zach LaVine? A big, pass-first, low-usage guard with above-average defensive chops and the ability to dominate in the open court? Or would you rather have a ball-dominant, high-usage guard who is a poor defender and plays a game reliant on speed and athleticism but without the requisite skills to do so effectively?
Sure, Rubio is a bad shooter. But…Rose is a 30 percent career three-point shooter knocking long-range shots down at a 24.1 percent clip this season. Rubio is a 31.1 percent career three-point shooter hitting at 28.1 percent so far this year. Both bad, of course, but on is better than the other.
There’s a number of levels on which this didn’t make sense, and the only possible reason you could imagine Thibodeau considering this is if he truly felt that Rose (in his prime, of course) is the best possible scenario for what Kris Dunn turns out to be, and he knew he’d be moving on from Rubio anyways. Then again, he could just sign Rose in free agency this summer if he really wanted him in the fold.
More likely than not, this was a lot of steam built up by the New York/national media folks. The Twin Cities media was always dubious beyond acknowledging that Thibodeau was entertaining offers, if not openly shopping Rubio around. But Thibs was never going to give his starting point guard away. And a bad, 28-year-old guard on an expiring contract with no knees wasn’t enough for him to pull the trigger.
(Update: the New York Post is reporting that some members of the Wolves had, more or less, the same ball-dominant concerns that are noted above, and that was one of the main hesitations as Minnesota continues to focus on the development of both Towns and Wiggins.)
Next: Remembering Zach LaVine's Dunk Contest Victories
All that said, will Rubio still be on the roster in four-plus months, on the morning after the NBA Draft? That’s a different conversation, but it sure does seem to be less likely by the day.