Draft Viewing Guide, 3/7

There is definitely a constant progress in his game, perhaps related to his return from the injury.

His stats against Real (3rd place in the Spanish league) were:
15 pts (3Pt shooting 3/4, the final attempt missed shortly before the end), 10 assists, 7 rebounds and 3 steals. All of this against Raul Lopez (he was the third Spanish PG in the Olympics behind Calderon and Rubio) and in just 26 minutes.

Just a few comments on this:

Advantages:
Intensity – Although still playing a limited time, especially in the first half, and although even sharing the ballhandling duties with Pau ribas (especially in the first half), Rubio was constantly in the game, directing the offense and running the defense with ongoing aggressiveness. I realized that I am not sure how exactly Rubio’s defense fit in the Joventut’s defensive system – he just seems to have been given free choice of what he considers to do. This generally means attacking the ball, no matter who has it (either his player or a big-man Rubio is going to double). This creates traps and sometimes the opposite offense is able to use it and to blow by him (through backdoors, for example). Still, the kid has reading and if he indeed is coachable, I think that he might even improve significantly.

Ballhandling and passing – This does not require much of explanation, in this game some of his passes were indeed fantastic and he ‘lost’ few assists because of fouls on the players he gave the ball to who did not finish. For me, this is even more impressive as the current squad of Badalona is indeed bad, with Pau Ribas (kind of a 21-year old poor man’s JC Navarro) and Jerome Moiso perhaps the only two players I was impressed at least to certain extent. With a dominant big finisher and a reliable and quick catch’n’shoot player who is able to find his own space, Rubio’s numbers might be even better.

Outside shot – Strange, isn’t it? I don’t like Rubio’s shot and the style is indeed bad, particularly no jump he gives. On the other hand – he is efficient. Against Real, he executed first three 3-point attempt, none of which were easy looks, usually he made some space from the pick’n’roll and immediately shot over the hand of a defender. The final attempt he had was the similar one, although very risky and he missed. Still, for the season in the Spanish league (not considering the Euroleague now), he is shooting 50 for three and 73 in the last month…

Deficiencies:
Outside shot – Better now, isn’t it? The main problem in his shot, probably related to his style is the selection. Rubio’s shooting for two was 2/7 in the game and he had 5 turnovers, most of this related to his unusually unsuccessful attacks of the rim. It was clear that as Lopez was not quite able to keep Rubio in front of him after pick’n’rolls Madrid have prepared against this and Ruibo’s penetrations were always contested by rotating big-men. I mentioned that Rubio had very few chances to pass the ball to his teammates, however what he might have done in several occassions was to stop (as Lopez usually gave him a lot of space fromteh pick’n’roll) and shot from the middle-range, or to finish with a floater. He did none, and particulalry the former quite concerns me. I think it is not a problem that cannot be improved, and despite the imperfect style of shooting, Rubio at least has a hand (and he is still recovering from the injury this year), but learning to stop the penetration for the jump-shot from the middle-range would indeed move his game into a fantastic level.

Defense – Very shortly, as this is related to what I write about above. Rubio seems to be playing the defense beyond any defensive team-system that his team is employing. It is clear that his aim is to steal the ball in any occassion, no matter who has it. It is not bad itself, and it brings more positive results than negative for Joventut, but I think he would really benefit from a stronger coach who woud make him focus on the team-defense in a more systematic way.

I was considering putting ‘decisions’ as a deficiency, due to couple of bad decisions he made at the end (not mistakes necessarily, he just did not shoot when he should have, or vice versa, etc.), but I decided against this, particularly because of the teammates he has and of the need to take too much on him (the game was teid until the end, Joventut eventually lost by 12 points with last few minutes being decisive).

There is quite a lot more to write about him for which I do not have time. I cannot honestly compare Rubio to other prospects in the draft, but assessing last few drafts and comparing him to players who came from those, I think he should be definitely a Top5 pick and probably a Top3. I cannot see him being the best player in any of the drafts inprevious years. On the other hand, if the Kings should draft the need (which I think they shouldn’t) and this should be a PG, he is definitely a better option than Jennings and probably also other college players (reading the analyses of theirs).