Ricky Rubio is entering the final year of his contract before he hits restricted free agency next summer, which means that he's looking to get an upgrade from his rookie scale contract. He is scheduled to make a shade over $4.6M this season and $6.7M next season, the year teams can sign him to an offer sheet. If you have been following the talks between Rubio's camp and the Timberwolves, you know that Rubio turned down a 4 year, $48M offer from the Timberwolves, asking for more money. I personally think that by doing this, Rubio is asking the Timberwolves to let him go since he definitely isn't worth any more than that.
I understand why Ricky Rubio is asking for more money. The NBA is a point guard driven league and he recently saw Eric Bledsoe get more money by turning down the Suns' initial offer. With that being said, Rubio isn't nearly as good of a point guard as Eric Bledsoe, and while he does show signs of promise, he hasn't yet shown that he will become the kind of point guard that deserves to be paid like a franchise player.
Let's take a look at his stats: Over his three years in the NBA, his rebounding average has consistently stayed right around his career average of 4.1 rebounds per game; his points per game average has actually dropped, going from 10.6 points per game to 9.5 points per game; his steals per game average has stayed relatively the same, which is 2.3 steals per game; his assists per game average has slightly gone up from 8.2 to 8.6; his field goal percentage has risen from 35.7% to 38.1%; his three point percentage has gone down from 34% to 33.1%; and his free throw percentage has stayed relatively the same across all three years at 80%.
Judging by his numbers, I would say he has improved, but only slightly. More importantly, he hasn't taken a leap in his scoring average. If you are going to demand more than $12M per season, even as a point guard, you need to at least be averaging around 17 points per game and 10 assists. I personally think the best Rubio can ever become is a 15 and 10 guy, which means I don't think he'll ever be worth what he's asking.
This doesn't mean that I think Rubio doesn't have any value or that he isn't a quality point guard. I just don't think he's worth anything close to the money that he is asking. He's a B grade John Stockton from a passing and defending perspective and nothing close to Stockton from a shooting perspective. John Stockton was a point guard worth more than $12M a year, Rubio on the other hand is a point guard worth around $7-8M per year.
If Rubio wants to ask for a shorter and cheaper contract and prove to the Timberwolves he's worth what he says he's worth, I'm all for it. Rubio could prove us all wrong in 5 years and morph into a bigger John Stockton. But so long as he demands this money without proving he's worth it, the Timberwolves are left with no choice but to trade him or let him go in free agency if they can't find a good deal for him.
One of the things that Rubio isn't considering in all of this is that to a certain extent he was viewed as a good piece to put with Kevin Love. The Timberwolves envisioned Love and Rubio being the future of their team as an item. But with Love now gone, the franchise has gone in a different direction, instead building around Andrew Wiggins, Thaddeus Young, Zach LaVine, Gorgui Dieng, and Nikola Pekovic. The Rubio-to-Love duo is no more without Love, which means that Rubio is more expendable.
The reality for the Minnesota Timberwolves is that they really shouldn't pay Ricky Rubio any more money than what they have offered him. He simply hasn't proven to be worth this kind of money. A final thought on this is that drafting Ricky Rubio was David Khan's idea and Khan is no longer the general manager of the team. It was David Khan who was sold on Ricky Rubio and celebrated his arrival like he was Jesus coming to redeem his people, not Flip Saunders. By letting Rubio go, the Timberwolves would officially be starting a new chapter in the Flip Saunders era and purge themselves of the David Khan era which for Wolves fans is an era that they want to forget.
---Ben Parker: follow me on twitter @nba_lord
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