5-man units and the Rubio impact

[foucault87]

To be fair, that's almost exactly what Rubio himself was this season.

I love Ricky, but his usage % was off the charts (24.9, by far a career high) and he attempted a preposterous 15.3 field goals per 36 minutes (also a career high, and incidentally, more than Caris LeVert, who's a known shot hunter). He did all this while posting a truly terrible TS%: 48.8, the worst among the guys getting rotation minutes.

In other words, Rubio was hyper inefficient as a scorer. That's nothing new. As absence has made the heart grow fonder this season, we've tended to forget that Ricky was forcing a lot of stuff there was no need for. I've watched him since his rookie year and this season is literally the first when I thought he was playing selfishly at times. That was weird to see. He was also pretty sloppy with the ball.

I'm not as crazy about the prospect of resigning a 32 year old Rubio returning from his second major knee surgery as many others seem to be. I also don't think the Cavs falling off had that much to do with Rubio's absence. Correlation is not causation. IMO, it was going to happen with our without him if JBB wasn't gonna adjust to the league figuring us out.

Rubio happened to play during the early stretch when the team was red hot. He obviously had something to do with that, but IMO less than people like to think. His advanced stats paint a picture of a guy clearly on the decline and playing at an NBA average level even when he was on.

Ricky's been a pro since he was 14 or something, he has a lot of miles on those legs.

I want to push back on some of the stuff you are saying here. I agree that outside of the Olympics, Rubio is not really an efficient scoring option. There are some circumstances around his shot taking though. Once Sexton went down, his shots had to go somewhere. Ideally, Garland, Mobley, and Markk would've picked up most of those attempts, but Garland and Markk both missed time, and we were still trying to figure out what we had with Mobley. Its easy to look backwards and say it was a mistake, but at the time, Rubio was our only player who could reliably create his own shot if Garland was not on the floor.

It also cannot be understated how important Rubio was to our offense. The dude is absolutely a wizard when it comes to floor vision and passing, 2nd to only Jokic in that regard. He was constantly reading defensive rotations before they happened. And he was very good at manipulating the defense to move where he wanted them to, something Garland does well too, but not at that level yet. Rubio did a great job of getting guys the ball where they liked and letting them play loose and free. Just look at Cedi, who looked like a legit swingman with Rubio, and looked like Cedi afterwards.

I also think Rubio had a bit more impact on D than we remember. Obviously, having 3 layers of backline makes things a lot easier at the point of attack, but Rubio was our best PG defender this year. And unlike Sexton, who is also a pretty solid PoA guy, Rubio can slide up and check some of the bigger guards for extended stretches.

And beyond that, Rubio let us unlock a wrinkle I think is among the most important in this team's long-term growth: Garland offball. Garland is an incredible shooter and has the kind of gravity you see from guys like Poole, Duncan Robinson, or the Warrior's 6th man (Steph Curry). Rubio was able to get Garland the ball in his spots which let him open up the spacing for our team much better than when you had Okoro or LeVert on the other wing.

Before he went down, there is no doubt in my mind that Rubio was at WORST the 4th most important player in our rotation after Frobley and Garland.

Now, it is true he has a lot of miles and has been playing for a long time. The injury sucks, but I don't see him as a player who's game was so dependent on athleticism. This is not prime Alonzo Gee we are talking about. Rubio's vision and luscious locks aren't going anywhere. I don't expect him to be a 30 mpg top 4 rotation player next year, but as a 20-25 mpg backup PG who is near the top of the bench rotation? Absolutely. And another wrinkle that I don't want to get too much into here, I think Rubio lets us get away with way more Sexton as the offensive 2 defensive 1. Sexton/Rubio/Love/wing guy is a sick bench mob