The fall of Ricky Rubio
As his Minnesota Timberwolves tipped off against the LA Lakers on 9th March, Ricky Rubio looked to add another strong game to his already impressive rookie season.
Rubio and stat-monster Kevin Love were accomplishing something incredible: making the Timberwolves relevant again. Minnesota had been a basketball wasteland for years when the floppy-haired Spaniard finally arrived, casually throwing no-look passes and alley-oops, creating havoc defensively, and becoming a regular on ESPN highlights. Jeremy Lin fever had cooled in New York and Ricky was reclaiming his place as the NBA’s family-friendly story of the year.
One night he was throwing a bounce pass through Dirk Nowitzki’s legs. On another he was using his reach to steal the ball then racing down the court and lobbing for a dunk. He passed, he defended, he scored, he passed some more. Kyrie Irving’s mighty PER in Cleveland should have made him a rival for Rookie of The Year, but the award was Ricky’s to lose.
Rubio was giving the Wolves something you won’t see in the box score: confidence. When he ran the break his team-mates expected a good shot. But when he slowed down, their confidence remained. Seeing Ricky forgo the break and pull the ball out to halfcourt, shoulders drooped as he casually waited to run the offence, was to see a point guard who believes in his skills and his team. His team-mates were feeding off this positivity.
And then it all went wrong. With Minnesota up one and 20 seconds remaining, Rubio again tried to make the right play. He ran to double-team Kobe Bryant, the two clanged knees, and just like that Ricky’s season ended. He had torn his ACL. No more season. No Olympics. He’ll be back, but his impressive rookie campaign was over far too early.
But was he already on the decline? Although his assist totals were fine, he had experienced a significant drop-off in shooting accuracy in the prior few games. While he was already shooting a poor 35% from the field, in his last six games he’d hit only 22% of his shots. Check the numbers: 1/8, 1/8, 3/7, 1/8, 1/7, 3/8. Had he hit the dreaded rookie wall? Had other team’s scouting reports caught up with his skills? Wolves president David Kahn had another explanation: Ricky was being beaten up. Kahn had complained to the NBA about bigger players being overly-physical with Rubio. Rookies famously don’t get the benefit of the whistle in the NBA. Was Ricky was being muscled off of shots he’d been making all season? Are any of these explanations the correct one, or are these stats simply a sign of a mini-shooting slump that he was ready to leap out of? Now, of course, we’ll never know.
Rubio’s looks to have the skill-set to overcome his shooting problems, and the more he plays the quicker the whistles will come. He has a lot of rehab ahead of him, but NBA fans have waited years for his arrival, what’s another few months?
